Broccoli pesto and green beans w/ tomatoes

Posted: October 30, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: beans, onions, tomatoes | Leave a comment

The broccoli pesto is from Super Natural Every Day, by Heidi Swanson, who also blogs at 101cookbooks where there is a similar recipe. I never have any really great ideas of what to do with broccoli, though Rachel makes some tasty soups, so it was fun to try something unique and even summery. This broccoli had a little bit of a bite to it which made the leftovers seem a bit too broccoli-ish if that makes sense.

The beans and tomatoes are from our yard and the CSA (yes this is from a while back – so what) and were super delicious. I love to throw this little business together, though Rachel maybe doesn’t quite as much since she doesn’t really like tomatoes, except cooked, and these are only cooked a wee bit.

Start with some red onion slice thinly and toss in olive oil warmed over medium heat. Cook until soft then turn up the heat and toss in the beans along with some salt and pepper. Cook that together a few minutes – sorry I’m not good at specific times or markers – just cook them until they are nice and warm and perhaps you even see a few spots where they are browning. Then throw in the tomatoes cut into chunks along with a pour of red wine vinegar and then a pinch or two of red pepper flakes. I suppose I should try this recipe with some fresh peppers sometime, but I think maybe I just want a tiny kick without overpowering with pepper flavor. Cook and stir until the tomatoes break down a little bit and you’re done. Eat it.

Pan fried trout

Posted: October 28, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: fish, trout | Tags: | 1 Comment

Long title.

We ate a lot of trout over the last few months. Its so tasty,  easy to prepare and pretty cheap too. And if you have a three year old, he or she might also like to chat with the fish. Addie sure does. She calls them face fish.

I like to pan fry these little fellers – sometimes after chopping off heads and tails, sometimes just heads as above and sometimes just whole. I usually take out the bones, which is relatively easy but sometimes time consuming – the meat pulls easily off the bones after cooking, but eaters like the ease of just digging right in. Becky Selengut’s Good Fish site has a great video (among many others) to show you how to debone. I can’t remember if she uses fancy pin bone tweezers in that video or not – I don’t have any – so it can definitely be done, but someday I think I’ll grab the tweezers since it does look easier. blah blah blah

Rinse and pat dry the trout before prepping. I usually brush the fish with some olive oil, salt inside, then dredge them in a mixture of cornmeal, salt, pepper and maybe some cayenne pepper. Toss some herbs and maybe some sliced lemon in the middle and fry in a hot oiled pan for a few minutes on each side until the skin is nice and crispy. These are also nice because they seem tough to overcook. If anything I tend to run nearer to undercooking the middle as I often have the stove too hot. I usually turn on the oven in the 350-400 range (often something else is/was in there which determines the temp) and then throw the whole pan in to cook up the middle if needed, or at a lower temp to just keep them warm for a wee bit. In general though these are super handy because you can get them all cleaned up and ready and then cook them up at the last in about ten minutes.

hmmm… I was going to write about the other things I served this trout with, but I seem to have rambled and rambled and rambled so I reckon I’ll save those for another post.