RECIPE: Chickpeas with Cherry Tomatoes and Feta or Halloumi

I've made this at least 6 times in the past 2 months!  The original recipe calls for cherry tomatoes and sheep feta, but I've made it with small tomatoes, large tomatoes, cow feta, and halloumi and they were all good..  The BEST version was with small tomatoes (1.5-2") and sheep feta.  

My husband likes this with sausage on the side, both lamb-garlic brats, and chipolata.

Original recipe: Sheet-pan Feta with Chickpeas and Tomatoes

Chickpeas with Tomatoes and Feta or Halloumi

Chickpeas with Tomatoes, Feta, and Halloumi

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 cups cooked chickpeas, drained, rinsed and shaken dry (I use one 28oz can)
  
• 3 pints (about 2 pounds) tomatoes, larger ones cored and cut into 1" pieces
• 1 shallot, thinly sliced (sub 1/2 cup green onions)
  
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 T. honey
• 2 (6-8oz) packages sheep feta (cow feta doesn't have enough fat) or halloumi sliced into 1/2" cubes
• 1 t. mild chile flakes or to taste (I used gochugaru)
• salt

INSTRUCTIONS:

 

Preheat oven to 400F.

 
On a sheet pan, combine the chickpeas, tomatoes, shallot, olive oil and  honey.   Spread in an even layer and season with salt (I used about 1 t. salt)

 
Arrange the feta or halloumi among the chickpeas and tomatoes and sprinkle with chile flakes.

 
Roast until the feta and tomatoes are soft, and the chickpeas are golden brown, 30-35 minutes.  There is no need to stir.  Eat right away! 

 
Leftovers reheat beautifully.

 

Here is a photo of the ratio of chickpeas to tomatoes that we prefer:

Chickpea : tomato ratio we prefer

 

Here's what it looks like before I add the cheese:

 

In the photo below, I used sheep feta and cow feta.  Sheep feta was definitely better!

The photo below was made with large tomatoes (MaiTai) and Halloumi.  

My husband loved this version, but I thought it needed more tomatoes.

MaiTai tomatoes and Halloumi cheese made with cow's milk

 

RECIPE: Quark Cheese with Scallions and Capers

There are scallions in the farm store!!  I just used the last of the red onions my husband grew, and can no longer make the Quark with Red Onion and Caper Dip we've been enjoying, so I decided to swap out the red onions for the scallions.  Scallions aren't a pungent as red onions, so I use more of them.

Quark Cheese with Scallions and Capers

Makes 2 cups

INGREDIENTS:

• 1.5 cups quark or cream cheese
• 1/2 cup scallions, sliced into 1/8" pieces
• 1 T. capers preserved in salt, or to taste

INSTRUCTIONS:

The capers I buy are preserved in Italian sea salt, and I'm loathe to throw that out.  If yours are preserved in brine, rinse them first and then add salt to taste. 

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and stir well. 

Use as a dip for crudites or chips, or as a garnish for smoked salmon.   

RECIPE: Rutabaga - basics, preserving, and recipe ideas

There are GIANT rutabagas in the farm store this week!  I haven't prepared them yet, but here is some advice for those of you who are interested.

GIANT rutabagas in the farm store

 

When you get your rutabaga home, cut any green tops down, wrap in an airtight bag and store in the coldest part of your refrigerator.  

How to store and preserve them: How to store and preserve rutabagas

According to Niki Segnit in "The Flavor Thesaurus":

The hot peppery sweetness and dense flesh of rutabaga can be sensational when you play up to its natural spiciness, as in Scotland where it's often seasoned with nutmeg.  Sweet Spicy star anise is another obvious partner, and so are sweet earthy flavors such as root vegetables and roasted garlic.  Unlike parsnip and potato, rutabaga has a rather good flavor when raw - it's hot and sweet like a radish!  

Rutabagas are called SWEDE in the UK, and you'll find more recipe ideas searching on "swede" than on "rutabaga".  

RECIPE IDEAS that sound good to me:

Roasted Rutabaga with Brown Butter: Roasted Rutabaga with Brown Butter

Mashed Rutabagas with olive oil, lemon and herbs: Mashed Rutabagas with olive oil, lemon and herbs

Rutabaga and Carrot Soup: Rutabaga and Carrot Soup

Rutabaga Gratin with Garlic and Thyme: Rutabaga Gratin

Mashed Rutabaga and Parsnip Casserole with Caramelized Onions: Rutabaga Parsnip Casserole

Celeriac and Rutabaga Puree: Celeriac and Rutabaga Puree

Rutabaga Spelt-otto: Rutabaga (Swede) and Spelt Risotto

Rutabaga with Onion and Sage:   Rutabaga with Onions and Sage

 

 

RECIPE: Poblano Peppers Stuffed with Chorizo, Spinach and Cheese

There were poblano peppers in the farm store this week!  When they're flat-ish I roast, peel, and then freeze to use in fajitas, fundito, and chili.  When they're round, I stuff them. 

Poblano Peppers Stuffed with Chorizo, Spinach and Cheese

serves 2-3

INGREDIENTS:

• 5-6 poblano peppers
• 1 T. lard
• 1 pound Mexican chorizo sausage
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 ounces blanched spinach, squeezed of all moisture and minced
• salt and pepper to taste
  
• 1/2 pound melting cheese (jack, cheddar, oxaca, or manchego), grated
  

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat oven to 375.

Remove the stem and seeds from the poblanos, then cut a 1" tapered strip from one side.  Chop the piece you removed and then arrange the peppers on a small baking sheet (I used our toaster oven)

In a medium saute pan, melt the lard on medium-high heat.  Add the chorizo and saute until brown.  Remove to a bowl, leaving some of the rendered fat behind, and set aside.

In the leftover rendered fat, saute the onion  and the chopped peppers until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes.  Add the garlic and stir until fragrant.  Stir in the spinach and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the chorizo back to the pan and and stir to combine.

Stuff each pepper.  Sprinkle with the shredded cheese and bake until cheese is brown and bubbly, about 30-35 minutes.

One of these is enough for me.

Here's a photo of the peppers before I added the cheese, so you can see how I cut the opening:

Stuffed poblano, before adding cheese.

RECIPE: Cucumber Juice

There are TONS of cucumbers in the farm store now, so here's an easy way to juice them!  And ... also a hard way...

The easiest way to make cucumber juice is to puree the cucumbers in a blender and then strain the puree through a nut-milk bag.  Cut them into 1" pieces, fill the blender jar 3/4 full, and blend.

If the cucumbers are large, remove a bit of the skin and taste it.  If it's bitter, peel the cucumber before pureeing it.  

The resulting juice will be light green and refreshing!

Cucumber Juice!

My favorite way to enjoy this is in a Cucumber Elderflower Cooler.

The harder way to make this is to use only small (with no bitter skin) cucumbers and to remove the seeds before pureeing.  The resulting juice will be darker green with a stronger flavor that will stand up to seltzer, prosecco, and other dilutions.  It makes a great Chucumber Cocktail or Cucumber Margarita. 

Our favorite way to use it is in a Chucumber - cucumber, St. Germaine Elderflower and Shochu.

Intense Cucumber Juice:

Remove the seeds and cut into small pieces.

Load the blender jar 3/4 full.

Puree.

 

Place a nut-milk bag over a container and pour in the juice.

Squeeze the juice through the bag.

Use this dark juice for cocktails!

Save the pulp!  Use it to make tzatziki.

When there is an embarrassment of cucumbers in the store, I will make multiple batches and freeze it in ice cube trays, to keep them over winter.  Once frozen, I remove them from the ice cube trays, nestle them in a zip-top sandwich bag, wrap the bag in foil to protect it, and then keep them in the chest freezer.  These can be used to chill a cucumber cocktail, or to flavor plain water or seltzer.

Cucumber ice cubes in a ziploc bag. 

Wrap the bag in foil, put inside a second bag, and freeze long term.

Use the ice cubes to cool a cucumber cocktail without diluting it, or to flavor plain water!

RECIPE: Cucumber Yogurt Tzatziki made with Cucumber Juice Pulp

This recipe is wonderful - and EASY - made with cucumber juice pulp.

Original Recipe: Tzatziki Sauce

Tzatziki made with Cucumber Juice Pulp

Makes 2 cups

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup cucumber juice pulp
• 1 cup whole milk Greek Yogurt
• 1 T. fresh lemon juice
• 1 garlic clove grated on a microplane
• 1/4 t himalayan pink salt
• 1 T. chopped fresh dill
• 1 T. chopped fresh mint
• 1 t. EVOO

INSTRUCTIONS:

Mix everything together and chill.

 

RECIPE: Turkish Meatballs made with Beef and Lamb

I am cooking for our interns again this season, and one of them can't have gluten, dairy or eggs, so when I found this meatball recipe that doesn't use any of those ingredients, I had to try it!  I tripled the original recipe and ended up with 100 meatballs so I left some at home for my husband and they were all gone when I got home - he loved them!  I served them with basmati rice.

The original recipe recommends serving them with parsley salad, but I needed something more filling so I didn't make that.  I used Urfa pepper flakes for the intern's meatballs, and Cobanero for my husband's.  Urfa is a Turkish red pepper that is fairly mild.  Cobanero is much hotter.

Original recipe: Adana Meatballs

Turkish Meatballs made with Beef and Lamb

Photo from NYTimes.

Makes 24 to 33 one-inch meatballs

INGREDIENTS

• 1 small red bell pepper, halved, seeded and cut into 1" pieces
• 1/2 medium white onion, thinly sliced
• 5 garlic cloves, divided (4 chopped and one grated on a microplane)
  
• 1/2 pound ground lamb
• 1/2 pound ground beef
• 2 t. cumin
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (I used Urfa and Cobanero)
  
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 T. olive oil 
• 1 cup Greek yogurt (for serving)
  
• 1 T. lemon juice
• 2 t. sumac 

DIRECTIONS

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine in the following order: the 4 cloves of chopped garlic, the sliced onion, and the bell pepper.  Pulse just until the vegetables are finely chopped but not pureed.

Chopped garlic on the bottom, sliced onions on top

 

Red peppers on top of the onions, and finely minced on the right.

Transfer the vegetables to a large bowl and add the lamb, beef, cumin, crushed red pepper, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.  Mix with your hands or a flexible rubber spatula until well combined, until it is almost sticking to the bowl.   

Cook a small piece and taste it.  Adjust seasoning if necessary.

Line a baking sheet with parchment (I didn't do this because my baking sheet is stainless) and grease it with 2 T. olive oil.  Using lightly oiled hands, form 1" meatballs, roughly 1 heaping tablespoon each (I used a 1" disher and made about 33 meatballs) and place them on the oiled parchment, spacing 1" apart.

Turkish meatballs about to go into the oven.

 Bake until they are golden brown and cooked through, 25-30 minutes (in our oven, they were ready after 20 minutes. 

While the meatballs bake, whisk together the Greek yogurt and the lemon juice.  Grate the remaining garlic clove and stir it in.  Season with salt and set aside.  

(While the meatballs baked, I made the rice, and they were both ready at the same time!)

Serve the meatballs sprinkled with the yogurt and dusted with sumac.    

RECIPE: How to Freeze Chives

How to freeze chives (and other herbs) to use in winter.

 

In the past, I froze all herbs rolled into logs, wrapped in a small plastic bag, and the bag wrapped in cling wrap.    I secured the bag with tape, added a small label, and stacked the rolls in a zip-top bag.

Basil logs ready for the freezer.

Storing herbs this way enables me to use farm herbs all winter long!  It also protects them a little from getting freezer burn because they're packed so tightly.  When I need to use them, I pull a log out of the freezer, slice off as much as I need, wrap it back up and put it back in the freezer.  For those recipes where I use a LOT of a certain herb, like Fatteh, I will make giant logs!

Slicing a frozen log of parsley

 

Now, I'm trying to reduce the amount of plastic I use, and the amount of plastic touching our food, so I froze this year's chives wrapped in parchment.  I still secure the parchment with a strip of tape and a label, and stack them in a zip-top bag, but the zip-top bag can (and will) be reused until it falls apart.  I may be able to reuse the parchment - we'll see how it survives freezing.  

Here's how I did it.

First, I washed and dried the chives.

Then I cut them into 5" long pieces that would fit snugly into the zip-top bags.  

 

I separated them into 1" bunches and wrapped them in parchment.  One inch rolls are the easiest size for me to slice when they're frozen. 

 

Parchment is slick, and doesn't stick to itself or to tape, so I used a piece of tape long enough to wrap around onto itself to hold the parchment in place.  I always fold the end of the tape over so I have a way to remove it.  In the photo below you can see the small tab of folded tape.  This enables me to remove the tape when I want to access the chives.

 

I put a small sticker on the end of the tape with the year and the name of the herb.  In this case I also wrote the name of the farm because we grow our own chives and I freeze them separately.  

Once the chives are rolled, I fold over the ends of the roll and stack them in a small zip-top bag.  I do this partially to protect the chives from the cold of the freezer, and partially to keep them together.

I can fit three logs into one snack bag, and two snack bags into one quart bag.  Double bagging them protects them from freezer burn.  I could wrap them in foil instead, perhaps I will try that with the next batch.  (When I stack them into the zip-top bags I alternate the side the label is on so that I can see what's inside regardless which side ends up in the freezer.)

Chives keep well in the fridge.  The amount above is from 3 weeks of farm days.

RECIPE: Carrots with Vadouvan Spice and Yogurt

I saved this recipe 10 years ago - in 2015 - but I've just recently sourced the Vadouvan, from Curio Spice so this is the first time I've been able to make it.  the flavor is PHENOMENAL!

The carrots we're using now were harvested last September, and they're full size, so I should have known to cook them longer than recommended as they weren't as soft as I like them.  Except for that, the flavor was delicious, and I will definitely be making them again!  

There's an interesting write-up on the history of the Vadouvan blend here.

There's an explanation of how it came to the US here. 

I'm looking for a recipe to mix my own and will add it once I find one I like.

Original recipe: Tandoori Carrots with Vadouvan Spice and Yogurt

Carrots with Vadouvan Spice and Yogurt

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 2 T. Vadouvan
• 2 garlic cloves grated, divided
• 1/2 cup plain whole-milk Greek yogurt
• 5 T. olive oil, divided
• Himalayan pink salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 pound carrots, tops trimmed, scrubbed
• 1/4 t. ground turmeric
• 2 T. fresh lemon juice
• Very coarsely chopped cilantro leaves 
  

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425F.  I used our toaster oven.  

If your carrots are large, like mine were, peel them and cut into sticks about the size of small young carrots.  Mix vadouvan with half the garlic, 1/4 cup yogurt and 3 T. oil until smooth.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add carrots and toss to coat.  Roast on a rimmed baking sheet in a single layer, turning occasionally, until tender and lightly charred in spots, 20-25 minutes.  

Meanwhile, heat turmeric in 2 T remaining oil in a small skillet over medium-low, swirling skillet, until fragrant, about 2 minutes.  Remove from heat.

Whisk lemon juice, remaining garlic, and remaining yogurt in a small bowl.  Season with salt and pepper.

Place carrots along with crunchy bits on baking sheet onto a platter.  Drizzle with yogurt mixture, turmeric oil, and top with cilantro.  

I served this, without the cilantro, as a side for chicken meuniere, and it was delicious.

 

 

RECIPE: Easy Chicken Pot Pie with Peas, Garlic Scapes, and Capers

Garlic scapes will be in the farm store soon!  I chop them and freeze them to use all year long.  For this recipe, I also used frozen leeks and celery.

This recipe originated in Food & Wine Annual Cookbook 2025.  The photo looked so good I made it the day the book arrived!  I made it as written, and thought it was bland, so I tweaked it.  My husband liked it so much he had three (3!) servings, and then ate it every day for a week.  

This is a cookbook recipe, so there's no original to link to. I tried to find a link to the book, because it's filled with many recipes that I can't wait to try, but I couldn't find it for sale anywhere!  My husband's credit card company sends it to us every year, and every year he says he's going to cancel it, but knowing now how hard the books are to find, we aren't going to cancel the subscription! 

Easy Chicken Pot Pie 

with Peas, Garlic Scapes, and Capers

Serves 8

Ingredients:

• 1 14" x 10" sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed (I used Dufour - see NOTE at bottom)
• 2 large egg yolks, beaten with 1 T. water
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3 leeks, cleaned, trimmed and thinly sliced (about 2 cups)
• 2 medium onions, chopped (about 2 cups)
• 2 cups of garlic scapes, sliced 1/4" pieces (I used frozen)
  
• 2 celery stalks, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
• 1 medium carrot, grated (about 1/2 cup)
  
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/3 c. flour (I used sprouted oat flour)
• 2 cups chicken bone broth
• 1 c. heavy cream
• 4 cups cooked chicken (I used home-canned) 
• 2 cups frozen baby peas, thawed
• 1/2 cup chopped flat leaf parsley (I used frozen)
• 1/4 cup capers (I used salt cured*.  If you use capers in brine, rinse them first)
• 2 T. freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
  

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400F.  Unfold puff pastry sheet and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Lightly score a 1/8" deep crosshatch pattern into pastry using a paring knife, spacing rows about 3/4" apart.  Brush evenly with beaten egg.  Bake in preheated oven until puffed and golden brown, about 25 minutes, rotating pan after 15 minutes. Let pastry cool on pan until ready to top pot pie.  Do not turn oven off.

Meanwhile, melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high,  Add leeks, onion, garlic scapes, carrot and celery.  Cook, stirring often, until vegetables are softened and starting to brown, about 8 minutes.  Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.

Sprinkle with flour and cook, stirring constantly , until a film starts to form on bottom of skillet, 1-2 minutes. Gradually stir in bone broth.  Bring to a simmer over medium and cook, stirring often, until thickened, about 6 minutes.  Stir in cream, chicken, peas, parsley, and capers*.  Taste and adjust salt (I didn't need to add any).  Add coarsely ground pepper to taste - we like this SPICY, but you may prefer less.  Keep warm on low heat until pastry is cooked.

Transfer the filling to a 11" x 15" baking pan.  Place the cooked puff pastry over filling.  Bake at 400F until filling is hot and bubbling, 5-8 minutes.

Let pie cool 5 minutes before serving. 

*The capers I use are cured in Italian sea salt, and I'm loath to throw that out, so I never rinse them before using, I just reduce the salt in the recipe.  If you use capers in brine, you should rinse them first and add salt to taste.

NOTE: My baking pan is exactly the right size for the Dufour puff pastry sheet.  If your pan is smaller, or you use a different brand of puff pastry, cut the sheet 1/2" smaller than your pan before you bake it, and use the extra for something else. 

  

This is what the book looks like.  You can see how many recipes I've flagged!