Eggplant and Frittatas

I happened to catch The Chew last week when Michael Symon made his ratatouille frittata.  This morning, I was thinking that something like that sounded good because I had made ratatouille last week, so I just typed "ratatouille frittata" into the search bar and lo, and behold, up popped the actual recipe.  While his version sounds really yummy (with the addition of okra), I adjusted it to what I had available in my refrigerator.  That is the nice thing about quiches and frittatas.  They are today's pot luck.  They are both great ways to use up things in your fridge.  In my case, I had ratatouille, asiago bread and feta cheese.

Ratatouille Feta Frittata
Adapted from: http://abc.go.com/shows/the-chew/recipes/Ratatouille-Feta-Frittata-Michael-Symon

• 3 cups ratatouille** (see recipe: http://csafoodie.blogspot.com/2012/07/ratatouille.html)
• 4 slices day-old bread (I used asiago bread)
• 8 eggs*
• 1/4 cup milk
• 4 oz crumbled feta cheese
• salt & pepper, to taste

Preheat broiler to low.  Place 12 inch skillet (I used cast iron) over medium heat.  Spoon ratatouille into skillet and warm.  Cut bread into 1-inch cubes.  Add to the ratatouille and mix well.  In a medium bowl, beat eggs with milk until smooth.  Season as desired with salt & pepper.  Pour over fillings and sprinkle with feta cheese.  Cook until eggs begin to set up.  Once the eggs are 75% set, place the skillet under the broiler and broil about 8-9 minutes or until the top begins to brown.  Remove from oven and allow to set for 5 minutes before serving.

*CSA ingredients
**Farmers market ingredients

Roasted Veggies

I had half a refrigerator full of zucchini, eggplant, and peppers, plus a few heirloom tomatoes and a large onion left.  I just ran out of ideas for things to make, so I decided to roast everything.  Then I'd have time to figure out what to do with them (or, I could just eat them as a side).  This time, I roasted the peppers whole and then chopped up everything else and roasted them separate.  In the end, I decided to take my rainbow of peppers and dice them to add to the rest of the vegetables, but they sure were pretty after roasting them whole.

Roasted Sweet Peppers

• 4 large bell peppers*, mixed colors

Wash peppers and cut any blemishes.  Place on a baking sheet lined with foil.  Heat oven to broil.  Place peppers under broiler and broil about 4 minutes each side until the skins are bubbled and black.  Place peppers into a Ziploc bag and allow to sit for 20 minutes sealed.  Then open the bag and allow peppers cool to handling temperature.  Cut away the stem and core, remove any ribs and remaining seeds.  Peel the skin by pinching and then pulling away.

*CSA ingredients


Roasted Vegetables

•  2 medium zucchini*
• 3 small summer squash*
• 2 small eggplant*
• 1 large onion*
• 1 ancho chili*
• 4 orange heirloom tomatoes**
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• Italian seasoning

Preheat oven to 400F.  Wash all vegetables.  Dice into large dice and split between 2 Ziploc bags.  Drizzle with about 1 Tbsp olive oil per bag.  Sprinkle with Italian seasoning.  Seal each bag and shake to coat the vegetables.  Transfer each bag to a 13" X 9" pan.  Roast vegetables for 40 minutes, stirring twice. 

*CSA Ingredients
**Farmers market ingredients

Spanish Rice Soup

There are certain vegetables that you get in surplus every year from your CSA.  As you can imagine, zucchini and summer squash are a couple.  What surprises me about our CSA is that there hasn't been an excess of greens.  We have had the greens attached to root vegetables (which is just fine with me if it means beet greens), however, other than some random kale, this CSA doesn't seem to go in for the greens.  I will say that I am grateful for that because, as much as I have grown to like greens, after a while, you run out of ideas. This year, it appears that the squash and zucchini will be the vegetable that I run out of ideas for.

To use up some of the squash, as well as fresh green beans and peas, that I received, I decided to make a chicken vegetable soup.  Yes, I do cheat and buy rotisserie chicken to use in things like this.  For the price, you can't beat pre-cooked whole chickens!  However, when the soup cooked, it was nice but not very hearty.  I figured I would take a look at my past stash and see what I could add to thicken it up.  I ran across a package of Lipton Spanish Rice and decided, hmmm, this might be nice.  Thus, Spanish rice soup was born.  Very hearty and tasty, I think I will have to freeze some of this because a small amount is enough to fill me up!

Spanish Rice Soup

• 1 small green zucchini*
• 1 small yellow zucchini*
• 1 small crookneck squash*
• 1/2 cup shelled fresh peas*
• 1 1/2 cup green beans, snapped*
• 4 cans tomatoes with basil & oregano
• 2 cans water
• 3 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
• 1 package Lipton Spanish Rice

Wash vegetables and drain.  Cut ends off squashes, cut in half lengthwise, then slice into 1/4 inch pieces.  Shell the peas and snap the beans into 1 inch pieces.  Place all the vegetables, tomatoes (undrained), water and chicken into crock of slow cooker.  Cook on HIGH for 1 hour and then reduce to LOW and cook 6-8 hours or until vegetables are cooked.  Turn cooker back to HIGH.  Add rice mix and cook for about 40 minutes or until rice is cooked.

*CSA ingredients

Nutrition (1 cup):
Calories, 190
Fat, 2.3g
Cholesterol, 15mg
Carbs, 34g
Protein, 9g

Squash Quiche

Mom and Dad have a busy weekend, so we decided to make another quiche (after all, when you have farm fresh eggs, you should use them, right?).  This time, Mom brought out a summer squash, bacon, bleu cheese and more mushrooms and onion.  Okay, challange accepted.  I decided to slice the squash very thin while Mom cooked up bacon, onion and mushroom.  Then I layered the squash with the sauteed items, sprinkled on the cheese and went from there.  Here's the recipe:

Bleu Squash Quiche

• 6 farm-fresh eggs* (note, several were smaller than normal, so I added one)
• 1 1/4 cups 1/2% milk
• 1 med yellow summer squash, thinly sliced
• 2 strips bacon, diced
• 1/4 cup onion, diced
• 1/4 cup mushroom, diced
• 1 cup sharp cheddar
• 1 oz Bleu cheese, crumbled
• salt and pepper

Sautee the bacon, onions and mushrooms over medium heat.  Layer the squash slices with the sauteed items.  Sprinkle cheddar and crumbled Bleu cheese over filling.  In a medium bowl, beat eggs, then add milk and beat until very smooth.  Season with salt and pepper.  Pour carefully over filling.  Bake in a preheated 350F oven for 35 minutes or until knife inserted into center comes out clean.  Allow to set for 5 minutes before serving.

*CSA items

Eggplant Squash Bake

Last week we received ingredients that were for ratatouille.  However, I had made ratatouille just the week before, so I looked for another recipe using mainly the same ingredients.  I stumbled across a recipe that also contained ricotta cheese and two other cheeses.  This was a great discovery for me because it is helpful to find recipes with protein.  While I had used my only white sweet onion yesterday in the fried cabbage, I did have a few small shallots, so I substituted them for the onion.  And now that I have tried the finished casserole, I may have to buy shallots more often.  They are a bit more work because they are best minced, but well worth it!

Eggplant Squash Bake
Adapted from: http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/eggplant-squash-bake-a-recipe.htm

• 3 shallots, minced
• 2 cloves garlic*, minced
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 16 oz part-skim ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup romano cheese, grated
• 2 tsp dried marjoram
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp fresh-ground pepper
• 1 medium eggplant*, thinly sliced
• 2 medium zucchini*, thinly sliced
• 2 medium crookneck squash*, thinly sliced
• 4 cups Slow-roasted heirloom tomato sauce*
• 1 1/2 cups part-skim mozzarella, finely shredded

Preheat oven to 350F.  Prepare large baking pan with cooking spray.  Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat.  Cook shallots and garlic until soft, about 5 minutes. Mix in ricotta cheese, romano cheese, marjoram, nutmeg, salt and pepper.

In prepared pan, spread 1 cup of tomato sauce on bottom.  Layer 1/2 of eggplant, zucchini and squash.  Spread cheese mixture over vegetables; repeat eggplant and squash layers.  Spread remaining tomato sauce on top.  Cover and bake for 50 minutes.  Remove foil and sprinkle with mozzarella.  Cook an additional 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.  Cool for 30 minutes before serving.

*CSA ingredients

Squash and Egg Casserole

This morning, we are having a goodbye breakfast for our lab tech, Matt.  He has decided to leave us and head to the Big Apple to work at Sloan-Kettering while waiting for an answer on his medical school applications.  I decided that maybe it was time to do something a little different in saying goodbye to Matt.  So I asked him if he liked breakfast.  He responded with a resounding yes.  Instead of asking the boss to pay for lunch (and be limited to 3 restaurants because of the lab's allergies), I invited our colleague's lab to join us and asked everyone to bring a dish to pass.  My dish, because I am still trying to use up everything I got during the 2 weeks Renee was in Italy, is an egg casserole.  I decided on this because I knew I had turkey bacon and a summer squash in my refrigerator.  This morning, when I went to get ingredients together, I discovered a second summer squash.  So instead of making a strata type casserole (which is a bit of a problem for me and for my boss who is celiac), I decided to just use the squash and bacon.

Squash and Bacon Egg Casserole
Note: I used turkey bacon in this recipe because I had it in my refrigerator and it's easy because it's precooked.  If you prefer, you can use regular bacon (which we often get from the CSA), but you would need to cook it before adding it to the casserole.  And if you are cooking bacon, you might as well cook up some onions as well ;).  I didn't put onion in this casserole because it was sort of a dump and bake recipe today.  I would do it differently given the time and availability of ingredients.

•  1 lb smoked turkey bacon
• 2 medium yellow crookneck squash*, halved and sliced thin
• 4 cups cheese (I used sharp cheddar and Italian blend)
• 12 eggs*
• 2 1/4 cups milk* (I used skim)
• salt, pepper and dried basil, to taste

Dice the bacon; place bacon and squash into baking dish and mix well.  Sprinkle with cheese.  In a large bowl, combine the eggs, milk and seasonings; beat until smooth.  Pour egg mixture over squash and bacon.  Bake 10 minutes at 400F and then reduce heat to 350F.  Bake and additional 15-20 minutes or until a knife, inserted into the center of the casserole, comes out clean.

*CSA ingredients. 

Zucchini and tomatoes

Last week, I ended up with a lot of tomatoes, zucchini and summer squash.  I needed a quick way to use some of it up and thought; "Why not put it in the crockpot?".  My husband had also brought me a pound of ground buffalo when he came down to visit last weekend.  For some reason, we were not able to find time to cook it up, and it needed to be cooked, so that will be my protein.  Since I am part Italian, I tend to default to a basil/oregano based sauce, but I would imagine you could season this any way you prefer.

Slow Cooker Buffalo Garden Vegetable Sauce

• 1 lb ground buffalo
• 1 lg cloves garlic, minced*
• 3 lg tomatoes*
• 2 small summer squash*
• 1 med zucchini*
• 1 (11.5 oz) can low-sodium V8
• 1.5 tbsp dried basil (you may use fresh, I just didn't have any)
• 1 tsp dried oregano (this may be fresh too)
• salt & pepper to taste

Heat a skillet over medium heat.  Add garlic and buffalo; saute until buffalo is no longer pink; drain.  Wash squash and tomatoes.  Cut each squash in half legthwise and then slice into 1/4 inch slices; place in crock.  Cut each tomato in half and then into thin wedges; add to crock.  Pour buffalo and garlic over the vegetables.  Sprinkle with basil and oregano.  Pour V8 over entire mixture.  Cover and cook 6-8 hours on LOW.  Adjust seasoning and serve over pasta (not included in calories below). Makes about 8 servings.

This is served over garlic-chive pasta* from Ohio City Pasta Company.

*CSA ingredients

Calories         122.8
Total fat             6.6g
  Sat fat              2.8g
  Poly fat            0.4g
  Mono fat         2.5g
Cholesterol      35.3mg
Sodium            58.9mg
Potassium      449.5mg
Total Carbs       4.6g
  Dietary fiber    1.2g
  Sugars             2.3g
Protein             11.1g