Tuesday's dinner was one of those meals where I don't really start with a plan, but rather have a pile of ingredients to use. The farm stand is open until 6 PM every Tuesday this time of year, so dinner is often whatever I didn't sell that day. It's always a challenge to pick enough fresh produce to fill the tables without being overwhelmed with leftovers that I have to cook or can! But there are some veggies that need to be picked every few days to keep them productive, so at the end of the day I had lots of green beans, snap peas, and zucchini, plus some cucumbers, kale, garlic scapes, spring onions and fresh herbs. In the fridge I had some sausage that needed to be used as well- it was the odds & ends from cleaning the grinder out between flavors, so even that was mixed up! It had been a long tiring day for both Dan & I, so it was nice to be home alone together (our farm has lots of folks who drop by often, it seems!) and be able to cook a really tasty meal from farm-fresh ingredients.
I started out taking the loose sausage and making meatballs. Just balls of our sausage, nothing fancy. I put them in a large skillet with a bit of water so they wouldn't stick, and added some chopped garlic scapes and onions, both the white & green parts. I covered it and let it cook on a medium heat, flipping the meatballs around every so often, until they were cooked through and no longer pink in the middle.
In the meantime, I was chopping veggies and bringing a pot of water to boil. When the water came to a boil, I added some of my homemade egg noodles. They were the leftovers that weren't quite enough to fill a bag for the stand, so there was a blend of regular noodles and ones with dried basil added.
Once the meat was no longer pink, I threw in a medium-sized zucchini which I had julienned on the mandoline slicer and some roughly chopped kale leaves. Instead of store bought seasonings, I added chopped fresh basil from the garden and some leek leaves I had dehydrated when wild leeks were in season earlier in the spring. Once those had begun to cook down, I added a generous amount of milk, probably about a cup, and tossed in bits & ends of various cheeses that were lurking in the fridge. I also tossed in a handful of sugar snap peas, pods and all. Once it cooked down, I thickened the cheesy sauce with some flour.
The result was delightful. While it was a blend of many textures and flavors, they combined to make a filling and tasty meal. It also had the benefit of using up lots of little bits of things, helping to clean up the fridge without feeding all that food to the pigs. While this is a pretty accurate description of preparing our meal, you probably noticed the almost complete lack of measurements of any kind. I cook like this often. As I was learning to cook as an adult, like many kitchen newbies, I followed recipes to the letter. As I've grown in my cooking knowledge, I've come to understand that, unless you're canning or baking, most recipes are a starting point, a guideline, of how to make something tasty. You should feel free to substitute ingredients you prefer or have close at hand to ones listed. As long as you enjoy the finished product, you did it right! So for a meal like this, I rarely measure anything. Using up scraps means I'm throwing in what I have, tasting it, and figuring out if it tastes good or if it needs a little something. While years ago I never would have dreamed of cooking this way, once you have a basic understanding of how to cook, you can take pretty wide liberties with what's going into the pan. Most of the time, I write down new concoctions in a little notebook- it helps give me ideas of tasty things that I've made when I'm stuck in a dinner rut. It's always fun for me to challenge myself to use only things I raise or make. This meal came pretty close- the cheese was from Whispering Brook, the cheese we sell at the farm stand, and the milk was also purchased as was the small amount of flour and black pepper I used. But the bulk of the meal was produced on-farm- all the veggies and herbs, the meat, and even the noodles. The flavors that resulted were a reminder that the best and most memorable meals are often ones made from scratch with the freshest ingredients.
I started out taking the loose sausage and making meatballs. Just balls of our sausage, nothing fancy. I put them in a large skillet with a bit of water so they wouldn't stick, and added some chopped garlic scapes and onions, both the white & green parts. I covered it and let it cook on a medium heat, flipping the meatballs around every so often, until they were cooked through and no longer pink in the middle.
In the meantime, I was chopping veggies and bringing a pot of water to boil. When the water came to a boil, I added some of my homemade egg noodles. They were the leftovers that weren't quite enough to fill a bag for the stand, so there was a blend of regular noodles and ones with dried basil added.
Once the meat was no longer pink, I threw in a medium-sized zucchini which I had julienned on the mandoline slicer and some roughly chopped kale leaves. Instead of store bought seasonings, I added chopped fresh basil from the garden and some leek leaves I had dehydrated when wild leeks were in season earlier in the spring. Once those had begun to cook down, I added a generous amount of milk, probably about a cup, and tossed in bits & ends of various cheeses that were lurking in the fridge. I also tossed in a handful of sugar snap peas, pods and all. Once it cooked down, I thickened the cheesy sauce with some flour.
The result was delightful. While it was a blend of many textures and flavors, they combined to make a filling and tasty meal. It also had the benefit of using up lots of little bits of things, helping to clean up the fridge without feeding all that food to the pigs. While this is a pretty accurate description of preparing our meal, you probably noticed the almost complete lack of measurements of any kind. I cook like this often. As I was learning to cook as an adult, like many kitchen newbies, I followed recipes to the letter. As I've grown in my cooking knowledge, I've come to understand that, unless you're canning or baking, most recipes are a starting point, a guideline, of how to make something tasty. You should feel free to substitute ingredients you prefer or have close at hand to ones listed. As long as you enjoy the finished product, you did it right! So for a meal like this, I rarely measure anything. Using up scraps means I'm throwing in what I have, tasting it, and figuring out if it tastes good or if it needs a little something. While years ago I never would have dreamed of cooking this way, once you have a basic understanding of how to cook, you can take pretty wide liberties with what's going into the pan. Most of the time, I write down new concoctions in a little notebook- it helps give me ideas of tasty things that I've made when I'm stuck in a dinner rut. It's always fun for me to challenge myself to use only things I raise or make. This meal came pretty close- the cheese was from Whispering Brook, the cheese we sell at the farm stand, and the milk was also purchased as was the small amount of flour and black pepper I used. But the bulk of the meal was produced on-farm- all the veggies and herbs, the meat, and even the noodles. The flavors that resulted were a reminder that the best and most memorable meals are often ones made from scratch with the freshest ingredients.