Penne with zucchini, ricotta and basil

Homemade or fresh locally-made ricotta will handily make its own sauce for summer pasta, thinned with pasta-cooking water. Here’s the start of this summer season, with local zucchini, summer squash and basil.

Ingredients:

Zucchini and summer squash, 1/2 # (2 small), cut into 1/4” slices, and if large, cut into half moons

Penne or ziti, 4 oz for 2 people

Onion, 1/2 small, diced finely

Garlic clove, minced

Ricotta, 3 T

Basil, good amount, ~1/2+ c.

Crushed red pepper, a good pinch

Lemon zest from 2/3 lemon

Parmesan and/or pecorino

Directions:

Soak zucchini and squash in water for 1/2 hour to discourage any grit, if time allows.

Prep:

Cut up onion

Slice zucchini

Mince garlic

Zest lemon

1. Put up pot of water to boil for pasta. Cook until al dente; drain reserving 1/2 c cooking water.
2. In large skillet over medium-high heat, heat 1 T olive oil and cook onions until softened, 5 minutes, keeping heat down to prevent browning. Add zucchini, S&P, and continue cooking for 10 minutes until soft, stirring occasionally. 
3. At end of cooking time, add tomatoes (if using) and garlic 1 minute before done. Turn off heat if pasta is not yet done.
4. Add cooked pasta to zucchini pan, and turn up heat to medium high. Add 1/4 c pasta water, ricotta, red pepper and lemon zest, stirring. Cook for a minute or so. 
5. Mix in basil and cheese. 

Options:

Add toasted pine nuts at end of cooking zucchini

Add cherry tomatoes and cook two minutes in zucchini pan

Use more herbs — e.g., parsley, and experiment with different red peppers and/or spices (harissa, perhaps?)

Make with roasted peppers instead.

Source: David Tanis, NY Times

Not a bad way to cook zucchini

I am not a fan of zucchini because it often lacks flavor. (A notable exception is Costato Romanesco — an Italian variety I have grown, which is very pretty with stripes, and also has a bit of a nutty flavor. And more importantly: produces copious male blossoms good for stuffing and frying!)

Having a supply of zucchini and summer squash from my CSA in June — and knowing full well there is plenty more in my future — I did some poking around and found a fine technique from Mark Bittman: Cut into slices, and sauté in butter, and then throw in some herbs. It being June, there was basil, which I cut into chiffonade (a fancy word for cutting into strips) and threw on top of the zukes when cooked. Actually fairly delicious with what became browned butter.

Directions:

Cut zucchini and summer squash into 1/3” strips, crosswise, cutting in half first if not thin. (I try to do as Marcella Hazan directs and soak uncut zucchini/squash in a sink of water for 1/2 hour to loosen any grit that has gotten embedded in the skin. If I don’t have time, I skip it.)

Heat up a sauté pan, add 2 T butter, and when foam subsides, or you feel like you waited long enough, toss in zucchini, add S&P, and cook at fairly high heat, tossing occasionally about 5-7 minutes until it becomes somewhat transparent in which you can see the inside seed part and you see some browning.

Remove from heat and toss in your chiffonaded basil. Can sit for a bit if you have something else to cook like this shrimp dish.

Poached eggs on arugula

Sometimes dinner hour rolls around and I’m just not feeling like a big project, and short on ideas. In the summer the produce from my CSA is a big driver for structure and inspiration. It being early summer, I had some beautiful, robust arugula. I had made poached eggs atop asparagus for dinner in spring, and thought I’d explore using with arugula. Frisée and poached eggs with bacon lardons I’ve encountered. I’m here to say arugula works just fine. I wouldn’t use what I call industrial arugula that comes in plastic shipped from California and is thick and small and seems to know no season. Frisée is classic Lyonnaise; dandelion greens would probably also work well. When you find yourself with a nice supply of fresh, local arugula — or other assertive bitter greens — and feel like a simple dinner, this may too bring you pleasure:

Dinner for one in early summer:

Bacon, 2 slices of thick-sliced, cut into lardons (sliced crosswise)

Shallot, 1/2, minced

Arugula, a hearty-sized bunch

Eggs, 1 or 2, put into small individual dishes to then slide into poaching water

White vinegar

Balsamic vinegar

Put arugula into a shallow bowl that you’re going to eat from.

Cut up bacon and shallot, separately, and get out a sauté pan. Put a hearty splash of water in the pan, and the bacon, and cook on high temp until water evaporates, then lower heat and cook on medium-low until bacon almost crisps. Add in shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes or so. 

When done, scrape onto arugula, and toss, perhaps not using all the fat if there is a lot. Add S&P, balsamic vinegar, and toss again. 

Meanwhile, heat a pot of water with a couple T white vinegar. Heat to boil, and hold over low heat.

When bacon is almost done, slide in eggs and cook at gentle simmer, uncovered, for 4 minutes or slightly less. Remove to paper towels to drain. Put atop arugula mixture.
Toast is good as an accompaniment. Perhaps cut into “soldiers.”

Inspiration: Michael Ruhlman (but I don’t know what to do with the 1/4 c red wine vinegar!)

Summer farro vegetable salad

I cannot get excited about zucchini, even freshly harvested by my CSA. Not a lot of flavor. The best thing about zucchini, in my view, are the blossoms from male plants that you can cut in the morning and stuff with cheese and herbs, bread and fry. Those fried blossoms are what makes growing your own zucchini worthwhile, and offsets the nuisance of having to poke around under large leaves no less frequently than every two days or you are going to find a monster-size zucchini since they grow ridiculously rapidly.

Anyway, I have zucchini and summer squash from my CSA. A fine use of them is to cut into medium dice, sauté briefly and mix into a summer salad with farro and other vegetables. This is how I used them in a cousin of a favorite wheatberry salad.

Here’s how:

Ingredients:

1 c farro, cooked with water, salt and bay leaf for about 18 minutes until tender. Drain and spread out on sheet pan to cool.

Vinaigrette:

Put 1/2 onion and shallot in bowl or small jar, and add a couple T apple cider vinegar and let sit (er, macerate) for 15 minutes or more. Add lemon juice, S&P perhaps some garlic. Add olive oil and whisk or shake.

Zucchini and summer squash, 2, cut into dice as follows: Cut off ends. Make 1/3” slices lengthwise. Cut into cubes. Sauté in olive oil w/ S&P for just a few minutes until barely tender. I also used cumin and “Izak” (mixture of sweet chili pepper, garlic and cumin). When cooked and while hot, toss in minced garlic (below). Remove and let cool, perhaps in a large bowl to assemble salad in.

Garlic, 2-3 cloves, minced

Shallot, minced

Red onion, sliced and then cut smaller. Half goes into vinaigrette getting macerated with apple cider vinegar; other half gets cut smaller for salad, raw.

Scallions. Good to cut into pieces and let sit in ice water for 20 minutes to firm up. They hold well for a while in refrigerator this way.

Baby turnips on hand? Peel and slice about 4 on a mandoline.

Spring cabbage? 1/4 head sliced thin goes well in this.

Red pepper, go ahead! Dice and add to the party.

Feta, yes, crumbled when all is cool, probably near end of assembling.

Pine nuts or pepitas

Additional options:

Cucumber

Olives

Carrots

Rhubarb! (and how to store berries longer)

I am here to sing the praises of rhubarb. While technically a vegetable, we use it as a fruit, and it is quite a welcome sight as the first “fruit” of spring here in the Northeast. Just add a whole lotta sugar to it, and it’s delicious with a balance of sweet and sour, which is an interesting taste. You can make yes, a strawberry rhubarb pie, which is very popular probably because they come in at the same time. But really a strawberry is at its most floral and tastiest when uncooked, that is, assuming you find some local berries (not shipped from CA or hard and large like potatoes with texture to match!). I once made an all-rhubarb dinner for a friend when I lived in Maine and was gifted a large 50-year garden plot with a rhubarb plant(ing) as big as a mini-van. I think it became a sauce on perhaps a pork tenderloin. In a salad to start. And of course as a pastry for dessert. 

And look! There’s rhubarbecue sauce to make!

Today I cooked up a rhubarb compote by simmering some cut-up rhubarb in water, vanilla sugar, lemon peel and a couple knobs o’ ginger. I cooked it for only 5 minutes and it fell apart, regrettably. I strained out the vegetable/fruit pieces, and boiled down the liquid for 5 minutes. The rhubarb is sadly of applesauce consistency; the liquid is delicious and I have made soda with it adding seltzer. It could become a delicious cocktail with perhaps some lime and liquor and liqueur.

Here’s what I did:

Rhubarb, 1 #, ends cut off and cut into 3/4” pieces, approx.

Vanilla sugar, 3/4 c. (If no pre-prepared vanilla sugar, use half a vanilla bean, scraped open and beans scraped into mixture)

2-3 lemon rind pieces removed with peeler, avoiding white pith

A couple 1/2”+ knobs of ginger root

Put into saucepan with water to cover. Bring to boil uncovered and simmer for (less than!) five minutes. 

Strain out solids, and return liquid to pot and boil over medium heat for 5 minutes to reduce. Put a little into rhubarb; store remainder in a container. Both get refrigerated. 

I think sweetened rhubarb is good on ice cream, yogurt, and in fruit salad with berries. 

You could also try Mark Bittman’s suggestion of skipping the sugar and instead use dates — 1 c minced for 1 to 1-1/2# rhubarb, plus juice and zest of an orange, 3 cloves (uh, not me), and add sweetener after cooking to taste — sugar, honey or maple syrup.

If you don’t want to eat the rhubarb pieces, you could empty the whole pot onto a fine strainer (or chinois), pressing down on solids, and then return the liquid to reduce. And use *that* for your summer cocktails or fancy sodas. 

How to store berries: Give ‘em a vinegar rinse to remove mold spores on ‘em so they last longer.

Put into bowl with 1 c white vinegar and 3 c water. Let sit for 5 minutes. Fish out and rinse. (Save liquid if you want to give a vinegar rinse to some other berries.) I leave the leaves on on strawberries.

Place berries on towel-lined sheet pans, roll around a bit and let air dry. Store in fruit compartment of your refrigerator, uncovered. 

Eat your strawberries fresh rather than in a pie, is my recommendation. Unless you have less than optimal berries, in which case combine with good old reliable rhubarb. 

Bok Choy

I like mini bok choy because it feels so very manageable to handle and cook. I particularly like it as the green in this Thai fish curry. 

But I get mammoth bok choy heads from my CSA, for which I am not complaining because they are beautiful! But . . . how to cook? I seem to always forget. So I am now writing it down.

Ingredients:

Bok choy

Grapeseed oil, 1-2 T

Garlic, 2 cloves minced

Ginger, optional, grated

Shallot, 1 sliced

Soy sauce, 1-2 T with perhaps some fish sauce

Sesame oil, 1+ T

Directions:

Cut a big head of bok choy in half length-wise, and cut off the root end. Then slice into 2” pieces, perhaps smaller at the stem end. Thrown into a sink-full of water, swish around and let sit to get rid of any soil. 

Chop up the garlic, perhaps grate some ginger, slice up a shallot, and because this is stir-fried and cooked fast, I like to measure out the soy sauce and sesame oil into little bowls to toss in at end of cooking. 

When ready to cook (takes about 5 minutes tops):

Heat up wok over medium-high heat, and add oil. Swirl to coat the surface. 

When hot, add shallot, and sauté, stirring for about 2 minutes, adding in ginger and garlic at end. 

Add bok choy and soy sauce, and cook for 2-3 minutes, perhaps covering for 2 minutes, and then tossing and stirring until desired tenderness of the stalk parts. 

Turn off heat and stir in sesame oil. Taste and perhaps add more soy sauce. 

This can sit for several minutes if you want to cook something else, such as this stir fried chicken which is a fine accompaniment.