Yes, there was that sweet potato – rivaling in size the watermelons of summer. Huge! What to do with it? In our house, the answer is, divide it up. I cut mine into thirds. One third went into sweet potato burritos (recipe below). One third will get cubed and roasted with sweet spices for another dinner, and the last third is going into this African Chickpea Soup because cooler temperatures are coming, right?
Adapted from Alexandracooks.com
Does it seem as if we have had a bounty of potatoes this year? I, for one, am definitely not complaining. I remember a farmer telling me a few years ago, if you don’t know what to do with potatoes, then you just don’t know how to cook. I thought that was funny – and then I look at grassfedcow.com and see that we have a couple dozen potato recipes there. I’d say none of us have an excuse not to dream up something to do with our potatoes.
But I see a glaring gap. There’s no potato soup recipe there! So I’m remedying that with the recipe for MFK Fisher’s Potato Soup (down below) which was adapted in alexandracooks.com. Couldn’t be simpler.
This one is more involved …. and requires some green onions you may have to pick up at a farmers market. It’s from the New York Times.
It includes a recipe for chile oil, but if you don’t want to go to that trouble, just substitute your favorite store-bought Sichuan chile oil.
Have we talked about blistered green beans before? I hope not, because I’ve got a recipe to share. It’s from Alexandra Stafford of alexandracooks.com. You do have a head of garlic left over from a week or so ago? Love her very clear direction on how to make sure this is seasoned the way you’d like and how to get blistered but not burnt beans.
If cooler nights are putting you in the mood for curry, love this recipe for butternut and mushroom curry from Madhur Jaffrey, printed in the New York Times. Perfect for the tiny butternut that was in our box. It’s sometimes nice to have a smaller vegetable to work with (like those small Japanese eggplants). This is comfort food, Indian-style, and mushrooms are usually available at our local farmers markets. Curry leaves are available at shops that sell Indian groceries. I purchased a small batch awhile back and keep it in the freezer. I have to say, though, that you could skip the curry leaves. I find their contribution to a dish is pretty subtle.
We received a pretty red pepper in our box this week — an inspiration to reach out to Annie (the pre-pandemic Rogue Baker of Grant Park) for her excellent pimento cheese recipe. With thanks to Annie, here it is.
And I liked the idea for Roasted Eggplant with Tahini, Pinenuts and Lentils as a variation of the baba ghanoush many of us probably make every year. From Serious Eats.
And then we got two Italian eggplants. I’ve got two recipe ideas below – neither is quick to cook, but both delicious. The Focaccia with Ricotta and Olives makes a delicious lunch. I’m hoping to get mine baked before we head out to the beach so we’ll have squares available for snacking on the road and enough left for a light dinner with a salad.
I know I spend a lot of time saying, “I don’t remember ….” but I truly don’t remember a year when the watermelon season has been so long. It’s been wonderful for me since watermelon is by far my favorite melon, but I know not everyone feels the same way. Did I mention freezing some of the watermelon and then pureeing with a bottle of rosé? Instant frosé!
And of course we have about a dozen recipes including watermelon curry on grassfedcow.com.
I hear that some boxes included delicata squash, but in our box we received a HUGE sweet potato. In this case, “I remember” last year’s first arrivals of sweet potatoes also being similarly huge. I’m excited and know that apples are not far behind. September is just around the corner!
With apologies to Georgia, I share a message I received from the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission. So many interesting ideas! (For some reason, North Carolina thinks “sweet potato” is all one word ….)
Last night I finally tried Charlotte’s go-to recipe, sausages cooked in rice. I think we found a new family favorite, and another way to hide 3 cups of squash. (Psst: they didn’t even know it was in there!) That tomato in my box that didn’t survive its encounter with the watermelon? It joined the squash and onion in the rice. The end result was similar to risotto all cooked in a single skillet. Bueno.