It is definitely fall now – and I’ve had the flu to prove it. We’ve been dealing with plague here at Casa la Del – which is why I haven’t posted since last week. (sorry!) Shortly after Miss Thing had her event on Sunday, she came down with a cold. Of course, she recovered in about a day and a half. However, they must have rallied their forces and brought in reinforcements because when the little germy buggers got to me, I was down for the count. I’m now in day six of my recovery, and am still not a happy camper. This is one very un-nice flu. Fortunately, Mr. Man seems, (so far atleast) to be fighting it off – which given everything he’s been juggling at work lately is what we like to call A. Very. Good. Thing.

As if having the flu wasn’t bad enough this week though, it seems like I must have really done it to someone’s cornflakes, because I’ve had just one of those weeks where nothing seems to go right. On Thursday, the day before my dentist appointment that I’ve been trying to do for three months, (it’s a long story), I get a call from the dentist office saying that there’d been a mistake and that they no longer accept my insurance and that I’d need to find another provider. Who I’ll probably also have to wait another month to see. And spend another day or two trying to find out of the pages and pages of dentist listings from my insurer – most of whom SUCK. Needless to say I was… uhm… angry. And I was so sick I had to skip the Full Moon this month with my sisters. That was very disappointing. And Miss Thing has been … uh… rhymes with Witchy… I mean uh, Grumpy! She’s been very uhm… grumpy this week. Oh – and my Facebook account has been locked since Saturday Night. I’ve been getting a ‘site maintenance’ error… From what I hear they’re having Database issues and I’m one of the “lucky” account holders affected.  So yeah. Bad Week.

At any rate – having several days of lying around in misery in bed meant that I didn’t get to use up these bananas (or much of anything else, really) that I received in my most recent FFTY box as I’d intended. I had lofty plans of pie or other some such thing, which naturally didn’t happen, so when I finally was feeling atleast marginally human I found myself looking at four smallish bananas that had definitely seen better days… or, in other words, that were absolutely perfect for banana bread.

But not just any banana bread – no, not this time. You see – ever since I visited Boston, and tried the King Pancakes at The Friendly Toast, I’ve been dreaming of Peanut butter, chocolate and Bananas. I rarely get bananas in my box, so I’ve been biding my time – waiting. I knew that if I was patient, sooner or later – the bananas would come, and I would get my chance to explore that heavenly flavor combination again. And boy, is it heavenly. I found a recipe for Peanut Butter Banana Bread on this site, which I used as a starting off point – but naturally I had to make some modifications. Minor things – but they really elevate this bread from yum to sublime.

Fair warning – this is definitely a dessert banana bread. It’s rich, dense and sweet. Mr. Man of course, didn’t care for the chocolate, saying that he felt that it drowned out the Peanut Butter Flavor, but Miss Thing and I both thought the chocolate was the feature that really elevated it to something special. Next time though, I think I would recommend dividing this in to two smaller loaf pans. I used a 9″ loaf pan, and it really was too much batter for the pan. The edges that kind of ‘muffined’ over the sides ended up quite a bit overdone before the center was. Other than that small flaw though, this is probably my new favorite banana bread.The only thing I have to say besides that is… Thank you, Thank you very much.

Ingredients:

• 2 and 1/2 cups + 5 tbs Flour; divided
• 4 smallish over-ripe bananas (about 1 and 1/2 cups Mashed)
• 3/4 cup Natural Peanut Butter
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbs Brown Sugar; divided
• 1/2 cup Plain Yogurt
• 10 tbs unsalted Butter; divided and softened
• 2 eggs; room temperature
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Kosher Salt (use less if using salted butter/PB, table salt or sea salt); divided
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbs Fine quality Chopped Chocolate (optional); divided
• 1/4 cup + 2 tbs Chopped Pecans (optional); divided

Method:

• Preheat Oven to 350° and butter or grease one 9″ loaf pan
• In a small bowl, prepare streusel topping. Mix together the 2 tbs of chopped Pecans, the 2 tbs of Chopped Chocolate, 2 tbs of Softened Butter, the 2 tbs brown sugar, the 5 tbs of Flour and a pinch of kosher salt until combined in to soft crumbles. Set aside.
• In another bowl, stir together the remaining flour with the baking soda and kosher salt. Set aside.
• In (yet) another bowl, stir together the yogurt and mashed bananas. Set aside.
• Cream together the remaining sugar with the remaining butter until fluffy.
• Add the peanut butter and beat until combined.
• Scrape sides of bowl, and add eggs one at a time until combined.
• Mix in the Yogurt Banana mixture, scraping sides again as neccessary.
• Add the flour, a little at a time until just combined (do not overmix)
• Stir in the remaining chocolate and pecans
• Spread batter in to the prepared loaf pan
• Top with reserved streusel mixture
• Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until knife inserted in center of loaf comes out clean
• Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then remove loaf from pan and transfer to wire rack
• Cool completely before serving

I can’t really believe how busy the last couple of weeks have been – and the next couple aren’t looking much better (again). Vet appointments, doctor appointments, running around, sports stuff, fund raisers, parent nights, yadda yadda yadda. It has just been crazy. I’m so ready for a break it’s not even funny – unfortunately, it’s probably going to be a while. To that end, I think I’m going to suspend (hopefully) temporarily the weekly box updates in favor of concentrating on getting recipes posted and just sprinkle in life stuff amongst the daisies… Which makes me sad, but until things settle down a little bit again, it’s probably for the best.

But as if all that wasn’t enough to keep us frantically running around, things at Mr. Man’s work have busied up – a project he was involved in had the deadline moved up, and it’s thrown a teeny monkey wrench in everyone’s plans, so he’s been super busy and working some long hours… Oh! And the Disqus Comments system that I was using on the website decided to bork – and we had to disable it. So comments should work again … yay. I don’t think I’ll be reenabling Disqus even if we do figure out what is wrong with it though – it wasn’t terribly user friendly. Hopefully we can port over the old comments as we part ways with Disqus. We’re still not sure what we’re going to use to replace Disqus – I’m sure it will be a process as we work on getting the kinks out.

Anyways, although the busy has kept me off the computer and out of Photoshop, I did have a few spare moments to whip up this little salad for dinner the other night – and it gave me the opportunity to use the new Corn Zipper I’d picked up a few weeks back. I’d bought it because, although I’m a ginormous corn on the cob fan – the last few times I’ve served up some corn on the cob, Mr. Man has grabbed a knife and cut the corn off the cob. Which creates a huuuuuuuge mess all over the table. So I picked up this gadget to try out and it actually does a pretty decent job. It still sprays juice a little bit, but the corn kernals don’t go popping off and flying as much – which is definitely an improvement over a knife. (Plus, it has a smiley face – what’s not to love about that?)

Unlike the last time I made a corn salad, this time I happened to have grilled corn – one of the fringe benefits of the Heap-Big grilling session I had Mr. Man do recently (along with grilled beets and carrots that I used here). Although I think if I’d had fresh corn, it would have been equally good in this salad. This recipe kind of fell together when I had received my most recent FFTY box and realized that I still had some green beans left from the previous weeks box… and that a couple of the tomatoes that I’d just received absolutely had to be used that day. I saw the corn in the fridge – and a lightbulb went off in my head, spawning this little love child. Knowing that the remaining days of fresh tomatoes this season are numbered – I’ve been trying to use them fresh, rather than cooking them, so a salad seemed like the perfect plan. This made a fair amount, but I had quite a few veggies to use up. It’s actually hearty enough to be a meal unto itself – and is vegetarian to boot. Although I’ll own up and admit that we served it with a side of steak.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Green Beans, trimmed and snapped in to 2″ lengths
• 2 cups Grilled or Fresh Corn
• 2 cups Chopped Tomatoes
• 4 oz Mozzarella di Bufala (or other fresh mozzarella); cut in to 1/4″ cubes
• 3 cloves Garlic; minced
• 2 tbs Good Quality Olive Oil
• 1 tbs Brown Rice Wine Vinegar
• Kosher Salt

Method:

• Blanch the green beans in well-salted water until tender-crisp (or desired tenderness). Approximately 2-3 minutes depending on preference
• Transfer green beans to an ice bath to stop cooking
• Drain and pat dry
• Stir all ingredients together and add Kosher Salt to taste
• Serve Immediately

This summer has been an unusual one for us – I think the trip to Boston really kind of threw our schedules a little out of whack and we’re still trying to kind of play catch-up. Normally when the weather is nice, I can get Mr. Man to grill a couple of times a month at least, but I think he’s barely fired up the grill twice this last six months. It’s getting to the point where I might just have to pull on some “Man Boots” and go figger out this grillin thingamajig for myself. (but thats a seperate issue). Last week, after only a little bit of whining, I got Mr. Man to do a big-big grill session. I had about a million things I wanted to grill, mostly because it had been so durned hot lately that I didn’t want to use the oven – and he was a sport and spent about 8 hours grilling. (Well – to be fair, it was more like roasting – so it wasn’t like he had to babysit it the whole time…)

I suppose you’re wondering where I’m going with all of this… Well, in addition to corn on the cob, and lamb spareribs (which are another post), I had him grill-roast some beets and carrots, for later use. They ended up getting a lovely smoky flavor, and when it came time to use them, I really wanted to let them be the stars of the dish. So I used them in this rice dish with some other flavors that I feel really complimented them well. Especially the blue cheese. The next time I make this, I will definitely use more blue cheese. I had picked up a lovely block of Point Reyes Blue Cheese a while back, and I was down to the last little bit. If I’d had more, I’da used it.

If you don’t have Blue Cheese though, I imagine Feta would probably be nice in here – or really any other sharp or pungeant, cheese – I’m sure there are lots of choices. But you would want something that can stand up to the strong flavor and sweetness of the beets and not be overwhelmed. I ended up having a lot of flavors going on in this dish – and while I really liked it (and surprisingly – Miss – Ewwww Beets – Thing didn’t hate it). She’s actually been a lot better lately about trying new things – I even got her to eat a couple of figs yesterday when we had a light dinner of fresh figs, cheese, and bread. She had loaded up on Cupcakes at her team practice because one of her teammates had a birthday – which I was really un-thrilled about, but there really wasn’t anything I could do about it after the fact except give scathing glares.

When I started mixing everything together, the beets dyed everything the lovely magenta color, which is why my brown rice looks like a nice shade of magenta – which I thought really made it look cooooooool. There really isn’t enough vibrant PINK food. I think if our next kid is a girl, and she’s half as girly as Miss Thing was when she was little – I will have no problems getting her to eat beets. Sadly, I didn’t offer beets to Miss Thing when she was small so she can often be a little uppity about them now. I probably should have – but to be honest, I’m not like a huge Beet Fan either. I mean, they are okay – I like them well enough. But before we started getting the FFTY box, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve made beets. Actually – I can count with one finger. lol! I had a rather failed attempt at making beets many moons ago in the before-csa time. I think I will definitely have to explore that whole blue-cheese and beets combo again though – it might make a believer outta me.

Anyways, on to the actual prep-talk. I recommend cooking up the beets and carrots in a background process a few days-to-a-week before hand, since the beets in particular take for-freaking-ever to cook. If you don’t want to grill them, you can roast them in the oven (I’ve extolled the virtues of roasted carrots before here, and grilled carrots are very similar – just with added smoky goodness).  In fact, this dish could easily be made in to a weeknight easy-peasy meal, simply by cooking up the rice beforehand as well. And for you veggies lovers out there, make it vegetarian by swapping out the chicken stock for veggie and skipping the bacon.

Ingredients:

• 3 Beets
• 1 lbs Carrots
• 1 small onion; diced
• 1 cup Long Grain Brown Rice
• 2 cups Chicken Broth
• 2 strips of thick cut bacon; cut in to thin ribbons
• 2 tbs Blue Cheese; crumbled
• 1 tbs Butter
• 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp Ginger
• 1/2 tsp Paprika
• 1/4 cup Pecans; chopped (optional)
• Olive Oil
• Kosher Salt

Method:

• Several Hours, or days before Grill the Beets and Carrots. (To grill, coat them in olive oil and sprinkle liberally with Kosher Salt – cook over indirect heat until tender – alternatively can roast in 350° oven)
• In a heavy pot with a tight fitting lid, bring the chicken stock, butter and a generous pinch or two of kosher salt to a boil
• Add the Brown Rice, cover and reduce heat to low
• Peel the Beets and cut in to 1″ x 1/4″ slices.
• Cut the carrots in to 1/4″ discs
• In a skillet over medium heat, fry the bacon until crisp
• Add the onions and saute until onions are translucent and slightly golden
• When the rice has finished cooking, stir in the cinnamon, ginger and paprika until well combined
• Add the sliced beets, carrots, bacon, onions.
• Top with Blue Cheese and Chopped Pecans, if desired

What a week! It has been crazy busy lately – lots of running around, doctors appointments, shuttling Miss Thing and just general busy-busy-busyness. I honestly can’t believe it’s a new week already. It just seems like it went by too fast. Part of that is the whole back-to-school-and-fall-sports thing, and part of it I think is just me. I’m just not sure where all the time went! Seems like one day it’s Tuesday, and then the next we’re back around to Monday again.

So what have I been doing in the kitchen all week? Well – We’ve had several fairly simple meals… and on Saturday Mr. Man did a ginormous grilling session for me – including lamb spareribs, Grilled Corn, eggplant, carrots and beets. Poor guy was out there from like five in the evening until ten at night. But it was sooooo worth it. Everything he grilled turned out excellent. I also made a tomato soup – which while delicious, I unfortunately backslid a little bit and didn’t really take measurements when making – so I can’t post about it.

My plan is to (hopefully) find time to trek out to a farmer’s market this week. I meant to go this weekend, but I did a little sleep-catching-up-on Saturday (I didn’t wake up until like one or two in the afternoon) and then on Sunday instead of going to one of the other local farmer’s markets, I ended up heading over to the Solano Stroll in Berkeley for the street fair. Which was fun, but exhausting and crowded. I’d hoped to try out some fun street food, but unfortunately the best option that I found was a corndog, which was yummy – but not particularly innovative. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough, though.

So what do I want from the farmer’s market with all this produce laying around the house? Well – I know I just did a huge canning session of tomatoes – but I can’t help myself. I’m a tomato fiend. So I wanted to pick up some more tomatoes – and this time roast them with some other veggies, some olive oil, etc… and stick it in the freezer. I know – I know. I don’t have a lot of space in the freezer… but I’m hoping I can find room for a couple ziplocs full of tomatoes…. Wish me luck!

Anyhow – I’m still really enjoying the late season tomatoes – although I’m less than thrilled at the return of Chard… I’m kidding, I actually was happy to see some green leafy veggies – since it gave me the opportunity to make up a batch of Pesto, which I haven’t done in a while. The raspberries unfortunately did not survive the unpacking process, being completely devoured within a few minutes of this picture taking… And the watermelon was taken care of that night as well. Next time we get watermelon I’m going to do what I did this time – which is slice it up and stick it in the fridge. It was much more convenient to have it all sliced up and ready for snacking. The musk melon I gave to our neighbors though, blergh. I hate when they forget to leave our exclusions out.

Now it’s time for a next segment… “This week in Kitteh Mews” Brought to you by Grabby (also known as Miss Thing).

Leeroy and Jenkins have had another busy week. Aside from their near-daily photoshoots, they’ve also been diligently spending much time on their grooming regiment (generally about five minutes a week – hey, their time is valuable!) nap time has been up ten percent this past week, although we’ve also seen an increase in daily Cat-isthenics. Incidents of food-robbing from the counter have taken a decided down-turn, probably helped by the fact that better food control procedures have been implemented.

A new super villain has been making the rounds, the media has been calling him “The Pink Feathery Thingy”. Both Leeroy and Jenkins have made several attempts to capture and/or destroy it – unfortunately, just as they believe they’ve gotten the upper hand, it somehow manages to elude them. More details to follow next time.

In completely unrelated news – there’s evidence that grooming hasn’t taken the complete downturn that we thought – pictures show that there has been some grooming activity this week. Although reporters were able to find pictures of this rare occurence… water baths were dispensed over the weekend to allay citizen concerns that the kittehs were carrying around miniature litter boxes with them – kittehs were shocked and dismayed that the public did not believe they were able to groom themselves without immersion in water.

Okay – I think I’ve tapped out my creativity, so I’ll drop the ‘news caster’ speak and just finish the update. Leeroy and Jenkins have a vet appointment this week, they’re going to get tested for FeLV and get their shots – it took me a little longer to get them an appointment than I thought. My clinic sez that the technician appointments apparently fill up faster than the vet appointments. Not a big deal – they’re going in this week, so it should be all good.

Last little tidbit before I have to run to go get ready for my dentist appointment – and that is, a few people have asked me how I’m able to get such great pictures of Leeroy and Jenkins – so here are the little tidbits of that has worked well for me with regards to pet photography:

• Be patient
• Take pictures during the day, with lots of natural light (when possible)
• Don’t use Flash if you can at all avoid it
• Be Patient
• Try to take pictures shortly after they’ve just eaten (works best with a set feeding schedule, not so much with free-grazing)
• Take lots and lots and lots and lots of pictures – for every 30 pictures or so – I usually get 1-2 good ones. Ish. If I’m lucky.
• Get down on the floor, at their level. Crawl around.
• Be patient
• Do lots of post-picture production work in imaging software of your choice – I like to do a layer with a gaussian blur and blend it with either Soft Light or Overlay at about 50%, depending on the picture
• Use the fastest speed you can for the light level you’re in – cats move quickly – and you’d probably be surprised at how many of my rejects are images with blurry white or black blobs in them.
• Oh – and Be Patient

Well – it’s official. My computer monitor, which has been getting a little flakey latey, has begun to actually DIE. It had developed a red bar on the left side of the screen – which, while annoying, I could live with… but about a week and a half ago or so, the right side of the monitor developed a very annoying and distracting flicker. So I pestered Mr. Man until he did a boat-load of research to help me with getting a new monitor, and it will hopefully be arriving soon.

Fortunately, my backup monitor – I have two on my desk, best upgrade handsdown that you can give yourself is a bigger, or second monitor, is still functioning. And in honor of new-monitor-dom, we purchased a color calibration tool called Eye-One Display 2. We used it to calibrate my backup monitor while waiting for my new monitor, and its hard to believe it’s the same monitor I’ve been using for the last couple of years, because it looks sp much better. It was a good investment for us because in addition to my two monitors, Mr. Man has his two work laptops and monitor, plus Miss Thing’s computer… Well, let’s just say we’ve got a lot of screens… lol But it is a little spendy. But anyways, the new monitor should be arriving tomorrow – yay! Atleast thats what UPS tracking seems to indicate… *crossing fingers*. Which means I should probably clean my desk, huh? blergh

Weekly FFTY box post ran a little late this week because on Saturday, I went to the farmer’s market and purchased 60 pounds (yes, 60 POUNDS) of tomatoes to can – which took me about 16 hours to peel, pack, and boil. Most of them are whole – I ended up with 13 quarts (well, fifteen – if you count the two that failed to seal that I threw in the freezer) and 6 pints of Spicy Salsa. (I’ll try to post about it later…) Then on Sunday, I realized that 13 quarts of tomatoes, six pints of salsa and the extra jars I purchased for said marathon canning spree would not fit in the pantry unless I did some rejiggering – so on Sunday I spent the day cleaning out, organizing, condensing, etc… the Pantry. Plus side, (aside from actually being able to find stuff) is that I was able to get everything off the floor of the pantry and the pantry step ladder so that I can actually – you know – USE the Step Ladder… Shocker, I know.

Miss Thing had a busy weekend, too – she had three friends spend the night – although it was only supposed to be two. She invited a third person because she thought the second person wouldn’t be able to come, but then the second person was able to come, and we ended up with three. I was less than thrilled, but she had a good time. Her and her friends had a great time swimming and listening to music and harassing teh grownups and all that jazz. I even managed to get them to hold still for me to take a couple of pictures for Miss Thing to have, which was nice.

I’m not sure what I’m going to make with all this weeks produce – I used the peaches and nectarines in a bread pudding that I’ll try and post a little later, and I used the sweet peppers in the Spicy Salsa I canned on Saturday. I sliced the fennel up very thinly and used it in a salad – which I really liked, but Miss-I-Hate-Fennel-Thing was less than thrilled… And I have some vague ideas for the beets – but I really need to come up with something good for the figs. The last few weeks we’ve received figs I’ve had a hard time coming up with something interesting to do with them, and searching for recipes almost invariably brings up some sort of fig-and-goat cheese mixture, which I love – but I’d really like to mix it up a bit. I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Knowing my luck, I’ll come up with something amazing… just before figs go out of season. :-/

But anyhow, I’m sure it will be a great week. Moving on to one of my favorite parts of the weekly update… KITTEH MEWS!

Leeroy and Jenkins have had a very busy week – they’ve had several photoshoots, terrorized each other, shredded a scratcher, jumped up on the counters, figured out how to open my clothing closet door, and have in general … been little demons. But they’ve also signed up for a twitter account where they have been unleashed on the vast animal twittering masses. They will post the occassional picture that didn’t quite make the cut for my blog, as well little daily tidbits and whatnots. If you’re interested in seeing more – feel free to follow them here: RoyandJenks.  (LeeroyJenkins was, sadly – taken).

In addition to their many other activities, Leeroy has become a little bit of a bully, and will sometimes take something from Jenkins that he was playing with, or try to steal his food. We’ve been discouraging the latter by keeping the seperate at feeding time – but I admit to being amused by the former, even if it’s not very nice.  We noticed the behaviour to ‘guard’ a toy first with this crinkly ball. When we first brought it home – Leeroy was immediately fascinated and went to great lengths to keep it away from Jenkins and from us. Of course, he didn’t growl at us – but he did at Jenkins. Jenkins is much more retiring of the two, most of the time, so when Leeroy growls at him about something he backs off – whether it’s food or a toy (which is why we’re keeping an eye on them while eating – Jenkins got a couple of pretty light meals there before we realized what was going on).

But Leeroy is so adorable with this crinkly ball – he will chase it for hours, carry it around in his mouth. If he hears you crinkle it, he’ll drop whatever he’s doing and run over to you – he’s gotten it stuck underneath the entertainment center more frequently than I can count and is just ridiculously adorable with it. We did notice Jenkins take one the other night and play a little keep away from Leeroy, so I think they’re working out the toy-playing situation… one way or another. In general, Jenkins tends to favor the fluffy, feathery type of toys anyways.

Leeroy will play with the feather on a string type of toys for a little while – but Jenkins simply goes nuts for them. He will jump all over them and chase them for a while – however, he does get bored. So if you use the same feather on a string too often, he’ll end up getting bored. I’ve found it best to keep several varieties laying around. Switching off toys every couple of days seems to do the trick. Although after examining the toys – I think next time I want to mix things up, I’ll just go to Michaels’ and buy some feathers and make some myself, because after buying (and having Jenkins destroy) several of these whojiggers I’ve realized that they look ridiculously simple to make.

On the health front – the gastro-intestinal difficulties have cleared up, thank goodness – as has the sniffles. I’m a little concerned that Leeroy might have ear mites, but since they both need to go in for a couple of shots and a FeLV and FIV test, it shouldn’t be a big deal, I’ll just ask them to look at his ears then. They had a sibling test negative for FeLV and FIV, but it doesn’t hurt to be sure, so we’re going to go ahead and get the test anyways. They’ve pretty much adjusted to the twice a day feeding schedule – although they are still waking me up earlier than I would really like on the weekends. They’ve also both been sleeping with us lately – Jenkins has decided to take up a sleeping post at the foot of the bed, by my feet – and Leeroy tends to alternate between squarely on my lower back or just above my head, depending on his mood.

This has been a pretty rough week for me. Miss Thing went back to school on Monday (boo) – and then I subsequently had a doctor’s appointment, which resulted in stitches (don’t ask), and as if all that wasn’t bad enough – I’ve been feeling pretty run down and oogey overall… Oh – and I think that the gums around my recent root canal have become infected. Feel free to shoot me now. On the plus side though, so far this week, Miss Thing has taken to heart the lessons learned over the summer and has been putting forth a real effort to be responsible for both her chores and her homework without being asked (and with minimal arguing). We’ll see how long it lasts. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping for the best – but realistically I have to remember that she’s a teenager.

The result of all my general oogy-ness and toothe achey-ness has been that we’ve had pasta atleast three nights the last week. My poor family. They’ve been pretty good sports about the whole thing – I mean, I’d put my I’m-feeling-oogy-Pasta up against any prepared food item at your favorite supermarket or fast food restaurant. Just the same, I’m sure they’ll be happy when I’m feeling better. I know – not exactly a rousing endorsement of this pasta recipe… but I’m getting to that. In spite of the “Pasta again?” place that I’d put Mr. Man & Miss Thing – they both said it was delicious. The Carmelized Onions and squash worked together as well as I’d hoped. I’d set aside the squash from this week’s FFTY box specifically because I wanted to try pairing it with the carmelized onions

Initially I had intended to do a creamy sauce. Some white wine, maybe a glug or two of cream… but the day that I went to make this. We were having 90+ degree weather and a heavier cream-based pasta dish didn’t sound nearly as appealing as something with a slightly lighter touch, so I tinkered around with my plan to be a little bit lighter. I also ended up being a little pressed for time when I made this – pulling it together just barely before Miss Thing’s practice that evening. Her and Mr. Man had been bugging me for a couple of hours to make dinner, but in addition to being oogey, I was also in the middle of working in photoshop, so I didn’t actually get started until about 45 minutes before Miss Thing needed to leave. Which wasn’t too terrible though – I finished the pasta in just over 30 minutes, leaving her about 10 minutes to eat and get out the door. Okay – so I won’t be winning any Donna Reed Mother of the Year awards – but hey, dinner in just 30 minutes. Rachel Ray would be so proud.

Like most dishes though – to pull this together on time required some pretty decent coordination. (If I do say so myself.) I was simultaneously carmelizing the onions, broiling the squash and boiling the pasta, all while chopping up basil, juicing a lemon … well, you get the idea. If you aren’t rushed or don’t feel as confident at multi-tasking, feel free to do the recipe in stages. It’s actually fairly simple and straight forward.

Ingredients:

• 16 oz Pasta (any shape will work – I used Whole Wheat Spaghetti)
• 2 lbs Squash; cut in to strips (for spaghetti) or chunks (About 3 cups)
• 2 Onions; sliced (about 1 cup)
• 4 cloves garlic; minced
• 1 lemon; juiced
• 4 tbs Butter
• 2 tbs Basil; finely chopped
• Olive Oil
• Kosher Salt
• 3-4 slices Proscuitto; minced (optional – omit for vegetarian version)

Method:

• Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil (for cooking the pasta) and begin preheating the broiler
• Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat
• Add the onions and saute until carmelized. Stir in the garlic and remove from heat.
• Drizzle the squash pieces lightly with olive oil and kosher salt, until evenly coated
• Spread out in to a single layer on a baking sheet and broil until tender and beginning to brown
• Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook to al dente
• Pasta should finish cooking just as the squash does (roughly)
• Drain pasta and toss with squash, carmelized onions, chopped basil, Lemon Juice and Kosher Salt to Taste. (Also add the Proscuitto if desired)
• Serve immediately

Well, Miss Thing went back to school this week. I know… I know… It’s only the second day and I’m already thinking “is it summer time yet?”. But back to school means that I’ve got to stop being lazy and sleeping in every morning, staying up late every night… mores the pity. I suppose it’s a good thing though. Mr. Man has recently had a whole spate of early morning meetings, so we should all probably be going to bed earlier and getting up earlier. Will we do it? Who knows.

With Miss Thing going back to school now though, my available free time is taking a dive – so I’ve been doing a little more cooking-ahead, atleast – when I’ve been able to cook. Miss Thing had a big all-day affair on Sunday, and then I wasn’t feeling well yesterday after my doctor’s appointment, so we ordered pizza… and it’s been a pretty slow week for me in the kitchen. Fortunately, I used up a fair chunk of this week’s FFTY box making this dip. Well – actually, I’m calling it a dip – but honestly, it’s much more versatile than that. For dinner on Sunday, we tossed some with pasta and sliced sausage for a nice spicy pasta dish, it’s also great as a spread on sandwiches, served with chips or pita bread – I’ll bet it would even be good on Pizza. It was a big hit at last week’s DVP Meet & Greet, and it’s super easy to boot.

I’ve decided that during pepper season, I will probably be making this (or a similar style dish) fairly frequently – it’s a great, easy, flavorful way to use them up – and it’s versatile enough that I (probably) won’t get sick of them. Although I do have to find a decent source for the spicy peppers – unfortunately FFTY doesn’t grow them. I have recently become aware of two other services that I may use to supplement my local-tendencies (and my lazy ones, since they also deliver… yay!) A service called Spud and Planet Organics. Both have their pluses and minuses, and I haven’t placed an order with either yet… But I’m definitely getting close. It’d be a supplementary to my FFTY box though – not a replacement.

At any rate – there really isn’t an easy way to mess this recipe up. The proportions listed are approximate, and you can feel free to mix them up based on what you have available and how spicy or tangy you like it. This makes a fairly largish amount – but it’s versatile enough that I can’t imagine it going to waste. I ended up with 1 quart and 1 pint (each) mason jars full, and it’s already almost gone.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs Eggplant; cut in to 2″ chunks
• 1 lb Crookneck Squash; cut in to 2″ chunks
• 1 lb Tomatoes; cut in to 2″ chunks
• 1.5 lb Sweet Peppers; cut in to 2″ chunks
• 3 Jalapeno Peppers; whole
• 2 Serrano Peppers; whole
• 1 large onion; cut in to chunks
• 6 cloves Garlic; minced
• 1/4 cup Fresh Basil
• 2 tbs Red Wine Vinegar (to taste)
• 2 tbs Lemon Juice (to taste)
• Olive Oil
• Kosher Salt

Method:

• Liberally salt the eggplant chunks and allow to drain for several hours (or overnight) before roasting
• Preheat oven to 400°
• Rinse Eggplant to remove some of the excess salt
• Place all chopped veggies (except basil) in to a large roasting pan
• Drizzle liberally with Olive Oil, and sprinkle liberally with Kosher Salt, stir to combine
• Place the whole Jalapeno and Serrano Peppers on top of chopped veggies, turning to coat with the residual olive oil and salt
• Roast in oven for 1 hour, or until veggies are tender and beginning to brown
• Allow veggies to cool to room temperature (for ease of handling – and so it doesn’t cook the basil)
• Take the Jalapeno and Serrano Peppers and set aside
• Puree remaining veggies along with the basil (working in batches if neccessary) in food processor
• Pour all but about 1/2 cup of the puree in to a bowl and set aside
• Remove the stems of the reserved peppers and add to food processor with reserved puree. Process until smooth.
• Add Kosher Salt, Lemon Juice, Red Wine Vinegar and Jalapeno/Serrano Puree to the remaining dip, a little at a time, to taste.

I’ve mentioned roasted carrots a couple of times in various posts, but to be honest – they were always devoured too quickly for me to get a good picture of them to post about them. I came across this method for making roasted carrots on a blog called Pottery Monster a while back, and since the first time I’ve made them it’s become my absolute favorite way to eat carrots. Every week that we’ve received carrots in our FFTY box, I’ve made this recipe – and it always leaves me wanting more, and is likely the reason that there haven’t been nearly as many carrot inspired dishes floating around, since in the dark times, before roasted carrots, I didn’t think that carrots were that special. But I’ve learned the error of my ways now… They may not look like much, but they are durned tasty.

It’s been hard to make anything in the oven lately – it has just been ridiculously hot lately. We’ve had the air conditioning on and the house locked up tight for most of the last week. It’s been a big de-motivator for cooking, even if it hadn’t been such a busy week. I’ll get motivated… sooner or later. Of course, next week isn’t looking too terribly calm either… Miss Thing goes back to school again, (booooo!) and then I have a doctor’s appointment, and I need to get Leeroy & Jenkins in for another vet visit… Nevermind Team Practice every night – although thankfully they drop to only three times a week soonish.

With all the busy-ness going around – these carrots are a perfect thing to have on hand – assuming they last very long. (when I make them they seem to disapear in about two seconds) While they do take a while to roast, the prep is super easy and the ingredient list is very, very short. And the results? Delish. Even Miss Thing, who hates all carrots and everything to do with carrots, admitted that these carrots are ‘okay’. In fact, if I ever manage to make it down to the farmer’s market again this season (I’ve had the last couple of weekends get completely hosed, what with the teenage invasion and everything else thats been going on…) You’ll notice though, that I don’t give specific measurements for this dish – mostly because you don’t need them. You can pretty much use however many carrots you happen to have on hand. They do reduce a bit in size when cooking, so it might be good to keep that in mind.

Ingredients:

• Carrots
• Olive Oil
• Kosher Salt

Method:

• Preheat Oven to 400°
• Wash the carrots
• Lightly coat the carrots with the olive oil
• Sprinkle liberally with kosher salt
• Spread out in a single layer on a baking sheet
• Roast until thick ends of the carrots are soft (about an hour)
• They will keep in fridge for atleast a couple of days – assuming they aren’t devoured immediately like they are at our house.

What a week – I can’t believe this is the last week of Summer Vacation. I’m so sad. Having Miss Thing around has it’s ups and downs, but atleast there’s the fringe benefit of not having to shuttle her around as much during the summer. I’m kidding – I really like having her home, and I’ll be sad to see her go back to school. Speaking of back to school, guess who put off the remaining back to school shopping until the Friday before back to school? If you guessed me – you’d be correct. I’m not quite sure how it happened – but this entire month seems to have just disapeared, and earlier this week I realized that Miss Thing still didn’t have a backpack. Or shoes. So that’s what we spent Friday fixing.

Some of the items were easy and low-key… Miss Thing’s current clothing tends towards the t-shirt, jeans, and converse shoes mentality… which, while not particularly original is atleast easy… Although we keep having a constant battle of shorts-length. Somehow, I just can’t seem to be convinced that it’s okay for teenagers to wear shorts that are cut about a quarter inch below the crotch. I mean – thats just not okay with me. Call me crazy, but I’d like to see a little more modesty introduced in todays young womens clothes. I mean, I’m not talking Catholic Nun or anything – just jeans that come up a little higher than Showing-off-the-top-of-my-underwear-when-I-bend-over and shorts that come down a little lower than I’ve-Seen-Bathing-suits-that-had-more-fabric. I guess I’m just unreasonable that way.

But we got Miss Thing all taken care of, and mostly ready for school, which is nice. And after I dropped her off at practice I headed out to the DVP Meet & Greet. I used up all the peppers and a few other veggies that I received in this FFTY box making up a lovely veggie dip to take to the M&G that I’ll try to post tomorrow – it turned out really well. This week seemed a little light on veggies, and pretty heavy on fruit, probably because last week they sent me pears and honeydew, both of which are on my exclusion list. :-/

We’ve definitely hit pepper season though – I’ve been watching the amount of peppers given each week get larger and larger recently. lol – I’m going to really have to start getting creative with them at this rate. We aren’t huge sweet peppers fans – not that we dislike them or anything… just not big fans.

So now for the other half of the weekly update – Kitteh Mews!

We’ve had a pretty good week with the little rascals. We put Leeroy and Jenkins on some meds for the sniffles they were having, and they seem to be doing much better. It’s also looking like we managed to clear up Jenkins’ parasite issue, although we are going to have to do another test to be sure. I’ve also been starting to train them to names, and it seems to be working (so far).

Per our vet’s suggestion, we’ve decided to switch them from the Free-Grazing feeding method to a twice-a-day feeding method. The upside to that is – one, it’s made them waaaaaaay more receptive to the whole learning-their-name-for-treats thing, and two, I know that there will always be atleast two times a day when I can find them! lol! They’re adjusting the change fairly stoically, only being fidgety and whiny when it starts getting close to dinner time. It also works out well with them currently being on meds that have to be taken with food. It’s a lot easier to know when their eating if we have a set feeding schedule.

The new feeding schedule has helped with Jenkins, in particular, since strangely enough depriving him of free-range access to food has made him much more affectionate and interested in the peoples. I can’t imagine why that would be. LOL! The biggest downside to the new food schedule is definitely mornings, though. The last few days they’ve been averaging quite an overabundance of affection and energy each and every morning, starting several hours before I’m ready to get up, saying things that roughly translates from Kitteh Speak as “Is it time for food yet? How about now? Now? Maybe Now? How about now?” And because I’m such a kewl, nice person – I’ve been groggily grabbing the kittehs and trying to keep them from waking up Mr. Man (too much atleast), which means I’ve been waking up much earlier than I would probably be inclined towards were it up to me. Stupid Kittehs.

But it’s not all bad – and once they settle down a little bit, I’m sure they’ll figure out a way to train me to their liking. Er… I mean – I’ll train them… Yea! Train THEM. <cough> anyways… It’s also supposed to be healthier – they won’t be able to gorge themselves in to becoming big ol’ fat kittehs, sparking a slew of kitteh health problems… Just you know – cross your fingers for me that they’ll figure out that whole morning thing soon? Please? I miss my sleep.

As I mentioned in some of my recent posts, the last week has been super busy – and we ended up with a little bit of a glut of veggies. One of the veggies we seemed to have an overabundance of was Cucumbers. We had like a pound of Lemon Cucumbers and another pound of regular cucumbers – far more than we would get through with just snacks or what have you. So there was only one thing to do… Make Tzatziki Dip! I still have yet another ginormous cucumber in my fridge from this week’s FFTY box as well… but I think I can manage with that one.

I normally try to take more in-process photos, but unfortunately I made this dip the night before Miss Thing’s giggle of girls came over for the Team Pool Party & Sleepover, and I was just a wee bit busy getting things together for it – so I only have the finished product photos… and barely those! I snapped a couple of pictures really quick while we were chowing down on it for dinner last night.

After spending the afternoon recovering from the Night of the Invading Teenage Girls, we had this dip along with some pita bread and sliced veggies for a light supper, and it was a big hit. Mr. Man and I already knew we liked it, but at first Miss Thing was like ‘ewwwwww… the cucumbers in the dip are going to be soggy!’ but we just did what we usually do when she does things like that and ignored her, putting some on her plate anyways – and after the first bite she was sold, too. Having a spread of sliced veggies, torn up pitas with the dip was so yummy, I think I might have to do it for a get together sometime. It was very elegant but low-key.

Mr. Man preferred to keep his veggies and dip segregated, but I stuffed mine all in a slice of pita and had it as little mini sandwiches – both ways were delicious.

The party was a big success by the way – Miss Thing says that everyone is going to be talking about it today at practice and about how kewwwwwwl she is. Which is good, because last year she had a few problems finding her feet as far as social interactions went. All but three of the girls on her team were able to attend. Of course, Miss Thing is looking forward to rubbing the party success in the face of one of the girls who wasn’t able to come. The girl has something of a queen bee mentality and has made life a little difficult for Miss Thing. I, of course, tell her to be nice. But you know how teenage girls are… DRAHMAH! Hopefully it will work out and Miss Queen Bee and Miss Thing will take things gracefully and be a little nicer. Riiiiiight.

Anyways, back to the dip. Making the dip is dead easy, but it does require a little bit of planning. I started the dip the night before, and finished it in the morning – leaving the yogurt and cucumbers to drain overnight. If you’re in a hurry, you can get by with an hour or two of draining, although you’ll really get the best results with overnight. I’ve made it both ways, and both are good, but the one that was drained overnight was much better.

**Some quick notes - I used Whole Milk Yogurt. I’m not really sure how low or non Fat would work, so if you try it, YMMV. I also took the sprigs of Mint and Parsley and Blanched them before adding to the dip so that they would keep their bright color. I saw the tip on another website and durned if I can find it at the moment. It’s not a neccessary step though, so you can skip it if pressed for time or what have you.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of Plain Yogurt**
• 2 cups Shredded Cucumber
• 4 cloves Garlic; minced
• 2 tbs Fresh Mint,** blanched and finely chopped
• 2 tbs Fresh Italian Parsley,** blanched and finely chopped
• Kosher Salt

Method:

• The night before (recommended) or 2 hours before you assemble the dip, line a fine mesh sieve with a flour sack towel, paper towel or cheese cloth.
• Pour the yogurt in to the lined sieve and set over a bowl to drain for 2 hours or overnight
• Take the Shredded Cucumber and toss with several generous pinches of Kosher Salt (1-2 tsps)
• Place the Cucumber in another sieve or strainer over a bowl and allow to drain for 2 hours or overnight
• When ready to assemble
• Blanch the herbs, if desired
• Place the minced garlic in a dry skillet and gently heat over medium low for 30 seconds to 1 minute to remove raw bite, if desired. (optional step)
• Rinse the the excess salt from the Cucumbers
• Use paper towels or a flour sack towel and squeeze the remaining excess moisture from the cucumbers. For the best texture, try to remove as much moisture as you can. (May require several towels – I used three pretty absorbant cloth towels)
• Place the cucumbers in a bowl.
• Add the Strained Yogurt, minced herbs and garlic.
• Stir to combine.
• Add Kosher Salt to taste