End of Summer Summary

As is evidenced by my complete lack of posting in the last two weeks months (...started writing this post a good month ago and never finished it), I am, once again, back at school.  The last week of summer was so filled with cooking and hanging out with friends from home (and I suppose packing...) that I never sat down to blog about anything I made.  Let's just say I cooked a lot in that last week, and I even had a lovely dinner party.  Here's a recap of some of the yummies that went into my tummy in that last week as well as some other random dishes from earlier in the summer that I never blogged about...

Let's start with the dinner party because it was absolutely fabulous!  Inspired by Julia Child's 100th birthday (and p.s. I am now reading her new biography "Dearie"), I decided to make coq au vin.  This was my first time ever following a Julia Child recipe word-for-word (...well I thickened the sauce with cornstarch rather than flour for a gluten-free friend).  Yes, I even flambe-d the chicken with some cognac...and managed not to burn the house down).  I had shied away from Julia Child ever since a melt down ensuing from trying to follow her confusing directions for the cake base of a buche de noel.  I am proud to say, however, that the coq turned out splendidly!

Green beans tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then sprinkled with shredded parmesan and roasted!

Coq au vin...my apologies that it is not the most photogenic dish...but it was yummy.

Basil mashed potatoes.

Vegetable Tian.  Zucchini, tomato, summer squash, eggplant, and potatoes with caramelized onions on the bottom and topped with plenty of gruyere and fresh thyme.

And then there was the fluffiest multigrain bread I made from Peter Reinhart's recipe...and the most fabulous sandwich that resulted from it.

I only made a half recipe...but it rose so well that I got two huge, puffy loaves!

And now the sandwich: sauteed eggplant, basil, tomato, and fresh mozarella...toasted and melted to perfection!

And then there was vegetarian lentil and swiss chard shepherd's pie...

Beautiful swiss chard and lentils sauteed with some balsamic...

...and topped with mashed potatoes and baked!

And then a most fabulous breakfast...

My multigrain bread put to use again...French toast stuffed with Fromager d'Affinois and topped with the fruity center of some left over blueberry crisp (from the coq au vin dinner party)

And vegetable ice cream?  I did it again!  (Remember the delicious and so pretty pink beet ice cream I blogged about a few months ago?)  Thanks to corn's natural summer sweetness...

Sweet corn ice cream, inspired by my most recent trip to Oleana.  If I may say so, I think my sweet corn ice cream turned out better than theirs; it was certainly creamier whereas theirs had a little bit of icy-ness.

And who doesn't like a new cookie recipe?

Walnut blueberry jam thumbprint cookies.  Such a buttery base with a lovely crunch from the walnuts and sweet hint from the jam!

And then a spicy flair...  One of my biggest struggles this summer was finding out what to do with all our CSA jalapenos!  Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that my skin is especially sensitive to jalapeno spice...from now on, gloves.  Always.

Jalapeno corn muffins make the perfect accompaniment to a big bowl of sauteed peppers, corn, and carrots with oregano and cumin.

And after several days culturing my sourdough starter, I made two different breads:
(Unfortunately, I forgot to freeze my starter at home before coming back to school...and I was informed that it was thrown out after a few weeks as it was developing some sort of scary black spores.  Sorry starter dude.)

The first bread.  Just a simple sourdough, nothing fancy, but such a lovely sour hint and a crispy crispy crust.

The second bread.  A Poilane-style miche.  Made with lots of whole wheat flour, which made the flavor more complex than the plain sourdough bread...plus the extra time for my starter to develop certainly added to the flavor punch.

And what is better than visiting a farm stand in the middle of the summer and buying nectarines?

Perhaps making them into a salad with green beans, avocado, radishes, and hemp seed all dressed with a light lime and cumin vinaigrette!

And how does one dress up a beautiful head of cabbage?

With some curry powder and kefir of course!  Sitting on a bed of spinach and topped with toasted cashews, this was a very satisfying and super nutritious meal.

And after shelling our cute little CSA peas, I decided they were to be hummus-ed.

Sweet peas with some white beans, tahini, salt, pepper, garlic (oops can't remember what else was in there...lemon juice probably?), served aside homemade superbly seedy crackers (Oh She Glows Endurance Crackers).

Finally, at times, our CSA supplied us with outrageous amounts of scallions...these scallion meatballs were the perfect solution!

Scallion meatballs (made with dark meat ground turkey) atop a bed of bamboo rice (Yes, it comes green because it has been infused/grown in bamboo juice!!  I know, so cool.) with sauteed radishes and a drizzle of glaze (ginger, soy sauce, mirin, brown sugar, basically.  delicious.).

Well there's a little summary.  I wish I had had the time to write about all these dishes in full length posts because I have so many pictures for each of them!  Hopefully I've learned my lesson...  Oh well, at least these dishes finally made their way to the blog.  If you would like the actual recipe for any of these, just post a comment, and I will reply with all the information!

Let's see how well I can keep up in these next few months...  Just know, even if I'm not blogging, there's plenty of cooking going on, and my brain is always (and I mean always) swirling with food ideas!