Onsa's Eggplant Tagine (p. 315)

We all know I'm not a big eggplant fan, but I think this is my last eggplant dish, so I'm okay with it. Plus, the pieces of eggplant and squash get fried pretty heavily olive oil, so that's always nice.

The eggplant needs to be salted and set aside to drain for about an hour -- the salt absorbs water from within the eggplant pieces which beads up to the top. After the hour has passed, rinse off the eggplant and dry them thoroughly.

This recipe is not vegetarian. Sauté small pieces of chicken with scallions in a little olive oil, and cover them with water to finish cooking the chicken thoroughly.

Once cooked, drain the water away and put the chicken and scallions in the food processor, along with capers, salt, and a little more olive oil. Blend until this has become a coarse paste.

Fry the eggplant as well as squash pieces in olive oil and set them aside to drain.

Lower the heat and cook a green pepper in the same pan until the skin begins to peel off.

To assemble the dish, layer in the half of the eggplant and squash pieces and put half of the chicken mixture on top. Sprinkle grated gruyere and top with a beaten egg. Then add the same layers again to use up the rest of the ingredients. Put the sliced, cooked pepper on top and cook for about 40 minutes.

I ate this stuffed in a toasted pita and really enjoyed it. It reminds me of a quiche and has a lot of flavor. The texture of the eggplant didn't even bother me!

gruyere cheese -- $7.05 (tons left)

chicken -- $.71

eggplant -- $3.47

green pepper -- $1.07

Total Cost of Onsa's Eggplant Tagine: $12.30

($4.10 per serving)

White Bean, Collard Greens, and Yellow Squash Soup (p. 138)

I made this soup the other night. The recipe actually calls for cavolo nero, or black cabbage, but that's kind of hard to come by, so I used collard greens instead.

I soaked the white beans over night with garlic and a bay leaf, and then cooked them in their soaking liquid when I was ready to make the soup. The beans took about 40 minutes to cook, at which point I took them off the heat and discarded the bay leaf.

The rest of the soup comes together quickly -- sauté onions until starting to brown and then add them to simmering chicken stock (or veggie, if you want it to be a vegetarian soup.) Do the same with squash -- I had butternut left over from a recipe last week.

Cut the greens into thin strips and add them into the soup, along with salt and pepper, leaving to cook for about 15 minutes until the greens are tender.

Add the beans and their water in with the rest of the soup and bring it back to a simmer. Serve with a little cheese on top!

This has a lot of greens in it. Maybe too many, for me. It's okay, but definitely not something I'd make again.

collard greens -- $1.99

yellow onion -- $1.03

Total Cost of White Bean, Collard Greens, and Yellow Squash Soup: $3.02

($.78 per serving)

Baked Zucchini and Spinach Pie (p. 95)

Last Thursday I received zucchini and squash in my CSA box that I wanted to be sure to use before tomorrow's box (with local honey!) arrives.

So, though Baked Zucchini and Spinach Pie (sgougato for those speakers of Greek) doesn't specifically call for squash, I decided to make it with both veggies. The book describes it as both a vegetable custard or a Greek frittata.  I adored both the Italian frittata and the North African frittata I made earlier this year, so I was hoping that this would live up to my frittata expectations.

To make this one, just saute minced onions with grated veggies -- on top of the squash and zucchini I also used sweet potatoes -- keeping over the heat until they have released their liquids and softened.

Stir in chopped spinach and, once the pan has been removed from the heat, add in chopped dill.

Set aside to cool.

Separately, whisk together milk and eggs and stir in crumbled feta. Add the now cooled (just enough so that it doesn't cook the eggs) vegetables and stir everything together. Add salt and pepper.

Cook until the crust is a golden brown and it is cooked throughout.

We both enjoyed this, but neither of us loved it. We liked the flavors that the dill provided, and used yogurt and some hot sauce to add a little something different to it.

sweet potato -- $.46

zucchini & squash -- $2.75

onion -- $.60

eggs -- $.75

dill -- $1.24

spinach -- $2.99 (I bought a big box of it, so there's still plenty left)

Total Cost of Baked Zucchini and Spinach Pie: $8.79

Squash Soup North African Style (p. 126)

Have I mentioned how I'm behind in soups? I'm worried that I'll get to the last couple of months and have to eat only soup until the end. So, soups. I need to tackle them.

Plus, I got a squash in my CSA this week, so I needed to use it. Apparently this soup is perfect for those chilly winter evenings, but I've decided I'm going to make it work in the muggy, hot, dripping North Carolina summer. Here goes.

In a stock pot, sauté celery and garlic in olive oil (and also carrots, if you haven't declared war against cooked carrots, which I have.) Once the celery has softened, add cubed squash (or pumpkin), chopped sweet red pepper, and either a fresh red chili pepper or dried, crushed red pepper, which I used.

When the squash starts sizzling in the bottom of the pan add chopped canned tomatoes and their juices. Toss in a cinnamon stick, turmeric (which I don't have), and water. Let these simmer, covered, for about twenty minutes, or until the squash is soft.

Puree the chunky soup together until smooth and then season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

So good! I normally prefer cream-based soups, but otherwise this is pretty much everything I like in my soup. It's spicy and sweet at the same time and the cinnamon really adds a unique flavor.

I may still add some cream to this, because I adore cream, but the soup stands strong without it as well. Make this. Maybe in the winter time instead, though.

squash -- $2.44

canned tomatoes -- $.99

red pepper -- $2.79

celery -- $1.99 (though I only used one stick)

Total Cost of Squash Soup North African Style: $8.21 (for about three servings)

Roots, Shoots, and Squash (p. 344)

This is a roasted winter vegetables dish, but a lot of the ingredients came in my CSA box this week, so, happy Memorial Day! Enjoy some winter veggies.

The nice thing about this dish is that you can pretty much throw in whatever you have and it'll come out delicious, so I made a few changes from the original recipe based on what was in my refrigerator.

The beets are cooked separately and are started before everything else, both to make sure the entire dish isn't pink and also to ensure that the beets are cooked thoroughly. Peel and chop them into small chunks and place them in a baking dish with fresh lemon juice and olive oil.

 In a small bowl, combine minced herbs (I used parsley, but you could use most anything) with chili powder (I used harissa, since I have some and it'll give the same sort of spicy kick) and stir together. The recipe calls for a pinch of this to be added to the beets before they are put in a very hot oven, but I mis-read and mixed the whole spicy herb recipe with the beets. Whoops. I didn't even notice until it was time for me to use the remainder of the mixture.

Anyway. Once the beets have begun roasting (they're supposed to take a little over an hour), begin prepping the rest of the veggies. Peel and quarter the onions and combine in a large bowl with chopped carrots and other somewhat hard veggies -- the recipe called for turnips and celery root, which I didn't have, so I used red potatoes instead. Whatever you use, be sure to wash it, remove any skins, and chop into somewhat bite-size chunks.

These are poured into a large oiled baking dish and then mixed with more olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and the rest of the herb/harissa mixture. I just made a second batch of the mixture and added it all to the potato/onion/carrots.

After about twenty minutes, add squash chunks (and in my case, zucchini chunks) to the dish. Stir well and put back in the oven.

Twenty minutes later, add leeks and garlic and stir again. Check on the beets as well.

Once the carrots are cooked all the way (about 15 minutes later) the dish is ready to come out. Top with the beets, and you have yourself a meal.

This pretty much created a feast -- it's a ton of roasted veggies. Luckily, they're pretty delicious, which I think is thanks to using harissa (and doubling the amount of it.) The veggies have a subtle heat to them, the kind that slowly invades your mouth (in a good way.) Unfortunately, my beets look a little crazy since they were covered in the parsley mixture and were in the oven for such a long time -- they definitely got a little crispy.

beets -- $2.44

squash -- $2.44

zucchini -- $2.44

onions -- $1.63

lemon -- $.42

carrots -- $.89

potatoes -- $2.44

leeks -- $2.49 (2 left)

Total Cost of Roots, Shoots, and Squash: $15.19 (this will definitely be in my lunch all week long -- it makes a whole lot.)

Grilled Fish (p. 355) with Salsa Verde (p. 271) and Sautéed Squash with a Chermoula Sauce (p. 337)

We grilled (burgers) on Friday night for the first time in ages, and got the grilling bug. So, even though we just had tuna for dinner last night, I decided to make a grilled tuna dish tonight for a cookout with some of our faves, Sarah and Blair.

This whole meal was great for having company, because there's a lot of prep work that can be taken care of in advance. Although the recipe for the fish only calls for marinading it for about a half an hour, I made it much earlier in the day and let it marinade for about five hours. The marinade is a combination of garlic, EVOO, fresh lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, red pepper flakes, cumin, parsley, thyme, and black pepper, all mixed together. This is painted on the tuna steaks (or whatever fish you want) with the rest reserved for later. I stuck the marinated fish on a plate covered in aluminum foil in the fridge until about half an hour before we were ready to grill it.

This goes on the grill for about three minutes per side, or more if you want it to be well done.

We had leftover Mhammara from a couple of days ago, which is supposed to go well with fish, but I wanted to make another side for tuna as well. Salsa Verde is an Italian Green Sauce for Fish or Meat, and is another super quick preparation. 

Like Mhammara, this has a walnut base, but this time the walnuts need to toasted in the oven for about seven minutes. While these were in the oven, I put parsley, basil, garlic, cornichons and the yolk of a hard-boiled egg into the food processor. Once the walnuts were toasted, I rolled them in a dishtowel to remove some of the tannic skins and then threw them in as well. The ingredients are processed together until everything is finely chopped. While they were still being mixed, I slowly added olive oil and then red wine vinegar. A little salt and pepper later, and the sauce is ready to be set aside for the fish. (Actually, we didn't set it aside. We dipped cucumbers and carrots into it, and finished off a ton of it before the fish was even ready.)

Lastly, I prepared Sautéed Squash with a Chermoula Sauce. I made the chermoula first, by stirring together garlic, minced cilantro and parsley, salt, paprika, cumin, olive oil, and lemon juice.

The squash itself is sliced lengthwise with the seeds and fibers removed, then peeled and sliced into segments and added to olive oil to sauté.

Once these are browned (this takes a while), remove them from the heat and mix with the chermoula. This dish is served at room temperature after marinating for about half an hour.

Pretty much everything we ate tonight was awesome. Matt did a great job of grilling the fish, and it turned out beautifully.

It was simply prepared, but really delicious. It was also really great with the sauces that we had on the table, including the leftovers of the marinade that it had been cooked in, heated over the stove. 

Lastly, the squash was great. I'm not a huge squash fan, but I liked that this was served at room temperature and had a lot of flavor from the chermoula. 

So, yum to the entire meal. So good. And, since they're so good at them, Matt, Sarah, and Blair posed for another awkward family picture.

tuna -- $20.55 (the fish dude talked me into getting more than I needed, and I don't want to talk about it)

lemon -- $.69

garlic -- $1.00

Total Cost for Grilled Fish: $22.24

cornichons: 4.99 (with tons and tons left)

Total Cost for Salsa Verde: 4.99

cilantro -- $1.99

squash -- $2.20 (CSA cost)

lemon -- $.42

Total Cost for Sautéed Squash with a Chermoula Sauce: $4.61