basil

What to do with Fresh Peaches

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Peach season is here in the northeast! Amanda and I went peach picking at Wilkins Fruit and Fir farm in Yorktown Heights last weekend, just as some of the trees were ripening. They should be in full-swing now. 🍑

If you went peach picking over Labor Day weekend, have plans to go this week, or just have a bunch of peaches from the store to use, here is what we did with them:

1. Peach hand pies

We used this recipe from Serious Eats as the base and subbed in peaches for the nectarines.

2. Peach Bourbon

When I was in Charleston a few weeks ago, I drank some peach bourbon in an Old Fashioned. It held up well, so I thought it would be fun to make some at home.

I know from experience that infusing liquor with dried fruit is better than fresh fruit, which gives off liquid and dilutes the final product. I diced up two peaches, put them on the dehydrator overnight, and then tossed the dried pieces in a mason jar with around 800ml of Old Grand-Dad Bonded for a week.

BONUS: Cook the bourbony peach pieces down into a syrup with some sugar and water for a wonderful ice cream topping or the sugar component in your Peach Old Fashioned. 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water, and the boozy dried peaches. Bring to a simmer and stir for 3 minutes, then strain.

3. Peach, Burrata, Basil, and Balsamic salad

I was mindlessly surfing Instagram Stories one morning last week and came across a great idea from Black Sparrow Press: Peach, burrata, basil, and balsamic. We love burrata and had basil on-hand, so I caramelized some peaches in cast-iron and put together a salad. It was so good we made it a second time this weekend for breakfast. The second iteration had fresh mint and honey on it, too.

Sisters Hill Farm 2018 CSA: Week 8

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Today was the first pickup we’ve had in the thunderstorm. Thank goodness for a storage shed nearby that we could use as a pickup location!

Here’s what we received this week:

  • Fennel – The licorice taste of fennel is great in a salad. I like to thinly shave it and toss with some lettuce, parsley, bell pepper, radishes, lemon juice, and olive oil. You can also braise it with stock and white wine, but I prefer it fresh.
  • Cabbage – Homemade sauerkraut.
  • Basil and tomatoes – Caprese sounds pretty good in this hot weather.
  • Cucumbers – I already ate one with some salt tonight. I’m going to eat at least another one of these that way, too. One of my favorite snacks. The other two I’ll probably make into dill pickles.
  • Eggplant, pepper, onion, zucchini, and cilantro – I want to make a maqluba, a middle eastern chicken and rice dish. Dinner in an Instant has an Instant Pot version I’ve been wanting to try.
  • Lettuce, greens, and tomatoes – As always, salads! I’ll spice it up this week with the fennel above.

Sisters Hill Farm 2018 CSA: Week 7

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This week is a quintessential summer vegetable share. Eggplant and yellow squash are finally here and tomatoes are a bit early this year!

What we received in this week’s share:

  • Lettuce, carrots, cucumber, scallions, tomato – Lunch salads!
  • Cabbage – I’ll combine this with last week’s cabbage and start some homemade sauerkraut.
  • Squash, Japanese eggplant, basil, and garlic scapes – I added this to a pasta dish tonight with chicken sausage and the spinach from last week. I let the flavors shine with olive oil and fresh grated pecorino instead of a tomato sauce. We’ve been using a red lentil pasta from Trader Joe’s to cut down on carbs.
  • Italian Eggplant, peppers, and garlic scapes – I love charring the skin of the eggplant and then roasting the eggplant whole along with a hot pepper, an onion, and some garlic (scapes will do!). Purée everything in the food processor with some fresh oregano and eat it with pita chips or tortilla chips.
    • I’m also thinking seriously about trying this za’atar eggplant fries recipe with a lemon tahini dipping sauce.
    • Eggplant is also great sliced and roasted or grilled. Combined with the squash it could make a nice ratatouille.
  • Kale – Just like the past few weeks, I’ll make a frittata with the kale and some sausage. I also toss in any leftover garlic scapes.
  • Carrots and squash – Both are great for roasting for a quick side dish. Cut the carrots into quarters along their length and the squash into 1-inch thick discs along their width. Roast for 20 minutes at 400F with olive oil and your spices of choice. I like garlic powder or paprika for the squash and cumin for the carrots.

Sisters Hill Farm 2018 CSA: Week 4

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What we received in our share this week:

  • Spinach, lettuce, scallions, and cucumber – Lunch salads! You’ll probably read that all summer long.
  • Bibb lettuce – We didn’t chop this for salads. We’re keeping it whole and using the leaves for taco wrappers.
  • Basil – I used this tonight in round two of the Vietnamese pork and cold rice noodles dish. I made enough for two meals and needed another set of fresh herbs to chop up and throw in there.
  • Bok Choi – I’m going to stir fry it with quinoa and chicken.
  • Turnips and kohlrabi – Earlier this week I pickled turnips and kohlrabi. It turned out great. This week I’ll chop them up into roughly finger-sized sticks and roast them with olive oil and minced garlic.
  • Garlic Scapes – I’ll chop up some of the garlic scapes and use them in salads. The rest we’ll throw in a frittata with spinach and sausage on Saturday for breakfast.

How we prep greens for salad

Here’s what we do every Tuesday night to make our week easier:

  1. Wash all of the greens in a bowl in the sink, a batch at a time. If it is a head of lettuce, we separate the leaves from the head.
  2. Chop the big greens, leave the small ones like spinach and arugula alone.
  3. Spin the greens dry in a small salad spinner we picked up a few years ago.
  4. Store the greens in gallon-sized ziplock bags that we leave unzipped. We put these bags in the drawers at the bottom of our fridge.

Everything usually keeps for about a week, but we prioritize eating the chopped greens first, since they wilt faster. Prepping the greens ahead of time makes putting together lunch salads a breeze.

See you next week!

Sisters Hill Farm 2018 CSA: Week 2

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Week two came just in time! We finished our greens from last week’s share with today’s salad lunch.

Here’s what we’re doing with this week’s share:

  • Lettuce, spinach, radishes, and scallions – These will make up the bulk of the ingredients for our lunch salads this week. I’ll cook some chicken or flank steak for the protein and add cheese, bell peppers, and some light dressing.
  • Kale and Basil – I used both of these in tonight’s dinner. I made pasta with pancetta, sausage, garlic, olive oil, black pepper, Parmesan, kale, and basil. I also made enough for us to have for lunch tomorrow. (We’ve been using chickpea-based and lentil-based pastas for the last few months to cut down on carbs.)
  • Turnips – I usually enjoy small, early turnips like these by halving them and roasting them with grapeseed oil for 20 minutes at 400F, usually with other root veggies. This week, though, the CSA newsletter included a recipe for a Turnip Puff. It intrigued me, so I’ll probably make it this week. Perhaps with ribeyes.
  • Bok Choi and Kohlrabi – I have two possibilities for these and I’m not sure which one I’ll pick.
    • 1. Stir fry. I’d shred the kohlrabi and rough chop the bok choi, add a protein, ginger, soy sauce, and serve it all over rice.
    • 2. This bok choi and kohlrabi pizza. My mandolin would make quick work of slicing the kohlrabi, we have enough bok choi for the pesto and the toppings, and we love making pizza on our baking steel. We have dinner plans with people multiple nights this week, so this would make a weekend lunch.
    • Alternatively, the kohlrabi would make a great addition to the roasted turnips if you peel it and dice it in one-inch chunks. The bok choi I made last week was great, or you could add it as another salad green as long as it isn’t more than 1/3 of the total greens. It is a little bitter and stands out in a salad. Keep it minimal.

Corn, Tomato, and Basil Salad with Old Bay

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We had a dozen ears of corn in the fridge a few weeks ago and were sick of corn on the cob, so I started searching for interesting ways to use it. After searching for various combinations of ingredients we had on hand + corn, I found this: Chesapeake Corn, Tomatoes & Basil by Jennifer Segal and Once Upon a Chef.

It was so good that we ended up making multiple batches of it. You can serve it either hot or cold. It makes a great picnic dish!

Corn_tomato_salad - 6

I made some modifications to Jennifer’s recipe to speed up the prep and cooking time. Here is my modified version:

Ingredients

  • 4 ears of corn
  • 4 tablespoons ghee
  • 2 teaspoons Old Bay seasoning
  • 2 medium tomatoes, diced (we used some flavorful heirloom green tiger tomatoes, but any tasty variety will work!)
  • 10 fresh basil leaves, chiffonade

Instructions

  1. Shuck the corn and cut it off the cob. (An offset serrated knife is great for this.)
  2. Dice the tomatoes and chiffonade the basil.
  3. Heat the ghee for a few minutes in a skillet at around 3/4 power. I prefer cast iron, but any skillet will do.
  4. Toss in the corn and cook until it starts to brown (see the images below). Move it around regularly with a wooden spatula to prevent it from burning.
  5. Once the corn starts to brown, turn the burner off and move the corn into a bowl. Add the Old Bay, diced tomatoes, and basil. Toss to combine.
  6. Serve!

What I’m Doing With My CSA Shares: Week 5

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We are on the Whole 30 again this month, so we are limiting our use of these veggies a little bit. I added some non-Whole 30 options so that you don’t have to suffer with us.

  • Green Leaf Lettuce – Once again, this is getting turned into salad for lunches and a dinner side. 2 heads should last us all week.
  • Cucumbers – These will get chopped up for salads and turned into spears for snacks. If you are having dairy, I suggest slicing these and making a salad with sour cream, dill, and onions.
  • Carrots – We’ll shred a few for salads and then probably roast the rest. I might grab one for an afternoon snack. If we weren’t on the Whole 30, I’d use the tops to make some pesto and eat it with burrata cheese.
  • Zucchini – We turned a few of these into zucchini noodles with a spiral attachment for our Kitchenaid mixer and making a quick cherry tomato sauce with basil and chicken sausage. We’ll slice up the rest and roast it in the oven with some spices as a side dish. 
  • Basil – We cut half of this into a chiffonade and put it in the zucchini noodles with the cherry tomato sauce. We’ll use the rest for pesto or adding to a fresh vegetable salad. We are on the Whole 30 again this month, so we’re foregoing putting this on homemade pizza or caprese salad.
  • Scallions – We’ll include the scallions in salads, in breakfast bowls, or in carnitas bowls.

Pesto Revisited

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I posted last year about making pesto in the food processor. I’m writing now to say that I’ve changed my ways.

I use a large mortar and pestle instead and make it by hand. I really enjoy slowing down for a few minutes and methodically grinding the ingredients together while I take in their fragrance. I feel like I appreciate the final product more.

My preference for ritual aside, pesto made by hand covers pasta much better and has a better blending of flavors. See Dan Gritzer’s post on Serious Eats for a side-by-side comparison. His was the first article I found when looking for a mortar and pestle pesto recipe after I bought a huge granite one to make guacamole in. Dan’s recipe is a great place to start experimenting from.

The exact recipe changes every time, but the method stays the same:

  1. Work the garlic and salt into a paste.
  2. Crush the nuts (pine nuts, walnuts, pistachios, or whatever you want to experiment with) and work them into the paste.
  3. Grind the basil against the edge of the mortar a handful at a time.
  4. Add the cheese and olive oil.

Here are some ideas for experimentation:

  • Try different varieties of garlic. I like Rocambole and Spanish Roja.
  • Try garlic scapes in late spring
  • Things you can substitute for the pine nuts: Walnuts, pistachios, or pumpkin seeds
  • Try other herbs with (or in place of) basil: Parsley, cilantro, arugula
  • Test out different hard cheeses in place of the Pecorino and Parmesan
  • Use different olive oils and note the flavors they add: Peppery, buttery, green

If you are in the market for a usable mortar and pestle (not one of those tchotchkes you see at Target), this is the 12lb behemoth I use.

Simple Pesto

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September 30, 2016 Note: I’ve revisited my pesto-making style. I no longer make it this way. Check out how I make it now.

There are so many variations of pesto these days that it is almost a catch-all title for green sauces. I’m not against that, but it is hard to know what to expect when someone says pesto. I prefer the simplicity of the classic version, both in taste and ease of preparation.

Classic pesto is made with fresh basil, garlic, pinenuts, Parmesan cheese, and olive oil all ground together with a mortar and pestle.

I don’t have a mortar and pestle large enough to do this, so I use my awesome food processor to make it. You could also use a blender.

Simple Pesto

  • 2 cups fresh basil leaves
  • 3-4 garlic cloves, peeled
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1/3 cup grated Pecorino or Parmesan cheese
  • 1/2 cup raw pinenuts
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Put the fresh basil leaves, garlic, cheese, and pinenuts in the food processor, put on the top, and turn it on. Slowly pour the olive oil in through the drip hole while the food processor is running. Stop the processor and scrape down the sides with a spatula if needed. After the pesto looks like a paste, turn it off and add in the salt and pepper. Pulse it a few times to combine. If the pesto is too thick, add some more olive oil.

Pesto is best made fresh and consumed right away. If you do need to save it for a few days, put it in a jar and put a 1/4 inch of olive oil on top of it to protect it.

fresh basilBasil for pesto


How to use it

  • Toss with pasta and cherry tomatoes
  • Toss with zucchini noodles and grilled chicken (what Amanda and I did with the pictured pesto)
  • Spoon over fresh, crispy french fries
  • Spoon over soft scrambled eggs
  • Use in place of red sauce on pizza

How I used it:

pesto and zucchini noodlespesto-4