Vegan Basil Lime Pumpkin Seed Pesto

Add Ripe Tomatoes for Contrast

Recipe by Robin

Lately I’ve been cutting down on dairy products, and more specifically my favorite: cheese!  I love the stuff, but everything from speaking to sleeping is smoother without it. Also, my husband’s new paleo-keto-ish eating plan inspired a new kind of pesto with this summer’s basil crop. Pumpkin seeds are a prominent part of both keto and paleo diets, being low-carb and traditionally hunter-gathered. Their earthy flavor combined with aromatic basil and tangy lime makes cheese both unnecessary and undesirable. Plus, they’re a good source of zinc, magnesium, Vitamin E, and fiber.

Vegan Red Pepper Soup

Health and Happiness

Recipe from Women’s Health Big Book

In my quest for new smoothies this year, I came across a book with the rather intimidating title: The Women's Health Big Book of Smoothies & Soups: More than 100 Blended Recipes for Boosted Energy, Brighter Skin & Better Health. Although I liked some of the smoothie ideas, I looked askance at the blender soups, particularly those made with all raw ingredients that could be served hot or cold. Yet, Radiant Red Pepper Soup was compelling—especially with 5 red bells in the fridge due to a hot, long pepper season this year. I whipped up this soup as an appetizer, thinking that the flavor would be more healthful than delicious. Sometimes I love it when I’m wrong!

Pesto, Kale, and Mushroom Spaghetti Squash

Italian Style Spaghetti Squash

Recipe Adapted from Allrecipes.com

It’s spring! Though spring officially arrives today, it will be a month or more before we start seeing local spring veggies. In the meantime, using up last year’s harvest of winter squash is prudent, but boring. But with just a little bit of cheating—making a winter pesto with imported basil leaves or buying premade pesto at the market—last year’s spaghetti squash is elevated to Italianesque loveliness. Combined with in-season kale, onions, and mushrooms, plus a dose of Parmesan, garlic, and red pepper, this spaghetti squash awakens even the most jaded of winter palates.

Tomato Basil Catsup or Jam

The Ultimate Burger Condiment

Recipe Adapted from Vegetable Recipes I Can’t Live Without

At last it’s getting colder in Santa Cruz, after a couple of too-warm winters. Our garden tomato and basil crops are winding down, and there are only a few over- or under-ripe varieties left at the Farmers’ Markets. These tomatoes might not be flavorful enough for salads. But any sort of tomato, even green, can be preserved in a catsup-like jam, according to author and Moosewood restaurant chef Mollie Katzen. I tried it with both over-ripe paste tomatoes and old pithy heirlooms. I might try it again with my green tomatoes, if the frost comes before they ripen. The sweetness (or tartness) of the tomato variety will dictate the sweetness/tartness ratio of the end product. You can alter this somewhat by varying the amount of honey and cider vinegar added to the mix.

Turkey, Apple, and Basil Sausage Burgers

Basil, Apple, Sweet Onion and Spices Compliment Meat

Recipe adapted from Smart Cooking the Costco Way

Happy 2015! During the final weeks of 2014 we enjoyed unseasonably warm weather in California. Our garden basil continued to produce strongly flavored if somewhat peaked-looking leaves. Right before the first cold snap, I harvested the remaining leaves and wanted to use them in a seasonal recipe for an oddly warm December. I found this recipe for mini-burgers in a book left over from our library’s book sale, which I purchased for just a buck. Right now you can purchase this cookbook, which has a surprising number of intriguing recipes, for $.01 (ten times less than I paid) at Amazon. I didn’t need another cookbook, but finding this wonderfully unusual combination of basil and sweet apple in a deliciously spiced burger was well worth my impulse buy.

Summer Squash with Lemon Herb Butter

Simple Summery Ingredients

Recipe inspired by Vicky and Live Earth Farm

If I had to pick only one vegetable to enjoy for the rest of my life, I’d choose summer squash. Of course, that’s cheating because with the near-infinite varieties of summer squash available, that’s hardly just one veggie. Summer squash colors, from palest yellow through golden through spring green to deepest emerald, delight the eye, particularly when prepared in combination. I’m a big fan of plain steamed squash, but recently rediscovered herb butters when my friend Vicky graced me with her back issues of Herb Companion magazine (now sadly defunct). Then a quick look through our CSA’s recipe index revealed a recipe for Lemon Caper Squash, which gets a flavor boost from herb butter. Now is the perfect time to harvest both squash and herbs from your garden, or find them at your local Farmers’ Market. The season for both will soon be past, so let’s revel in them while we can.

Classic Caprese Salad

Caprese Eye-Candy

Recipe by Robin

Few salads are as attractive as Caprese salad when compared with the amount of work needed for their creation. Caprese’s bold colors, reminiscent of the Italian flag, appeal to the eye as the simple combination of basil, tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella appeals to the tastebuds. Though home chefs will be hard pressed to match the restaurant version with cheese and tomato slices exactly matching in diameter and thickness and perfect tiny basil leaves, the home-based result is plenty appealing when carefully arranged. Garden basil prepared chiffonade-style and sprinkled over the top fools the eye into thinking that the tomato and cheese slices match more perfectly.

Gazpacho with Basil and Parsley

Refreshing and Healthful

Recipe by Robin

After the delicious results of preparing cousin Sheila’s Mexican-style Gazpacho, I wanted to find a more traditional Spanish recipe. However, the original gazpacho turns out to be an entirely different soup, dating back to Greek and Roman civilizations. Its main components were bread, olive oil, water, vinegar, and garlic. Or perhaps the Moors brought a similar gazpacho, sans vinegar, to Andalucia. In any case, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers weren’t added until they arrived from the New World in the 16^th century. Given the bounty of these veggies at my house, sticking with the ancient tradition was not an option. As usual in the gardener’s kitchen, necessity was the mother of invention.

Carrot Soup with Cilantro (or Basil) Pesto

Garnished with Cilantro Pesto and Chives

Recipe adapted from Sunset Magazine, April 2012

In these days of abundant and perishable tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and kale, summer carrots sometimes get sidelined from the menu. CSA subscribers might have the sudden realization, usually due to lack of refrigerator space, that they are storing 4 or more lbs. of carrots from several weeks of produce deliveries. Add to that the herb bunch blues—the challenge of using up the whole Farmers’ Market herb bunch, when most recipes call for significantly less. Enter SunsetMagazine’s unique recipe for Carrot Soup with Carrot Top Pesto, a quick substitution of available herbs for the unavailable carrot tops, a fast doubling of the recipe—and the carrot stash is reduced by half, deliciously.

Pasta with Onion, Green Garlic, Sundried Tomato, and Basil

Top with Parmesan Cheese, or Not

Recipe by Robin

Most great cooks love improvising from written recipes with inspired and/or wacky ideas. Not only does improvising tickle the cook’s creative bones, it’s also a practical way to deal with an overly enthusiastic garden and odd bits of leftovers in the kitchen. As case in point, I’ve just reinvented my classic “cheap fare” recipe, Pasta a l’Olio.  I incorporated a backlog of onions and green garlic from our CSA, a bounty of CSA basil from this week, and dried tomatoes from our last year’s garden harvest. Soon this year’s tomatoes will be ripe for drying, so I used a rather large amount from last year along with some tomato paste. You could reduce the quantity of dried tomatoes, and/or add some fresh tomatoes or tomato sauce. We’re improvising here, eh?

Top 10 Herbs to Grow in Pots

Sweet Basil: Everyone's Favorite Garden Herb

Suggestions by Robin

Back in the days when I lived in the not-so-great part of Santa Cruz, before the city added street lights to discourage nefarious trades of all kinds, my landlord inhibited my attempts to have a garden by sudden yard activities. One time I came home the yard was shorn into a badminton court. Another time, horse poop was scattered all over everything. Another time the deck was ripped up, along with the jade plants I’d started growing next to it. Being a compulsive gardener and purchaser of seedlings, I began growing just about any plants that came my way in pots. Herbs, whether annual or perennial, are most practical. Not only do they add spark and finesse to meals, a line of herbs in same-size pots adds charm and elegance to even the most Spartan-looking landscapes. Here are 10 of my favorite pot-friendly herbs.

Strawberry and Spring Vegetable Salad

First Salad Attempt: Made with Chopped Nuts while Intoxicated

Recipe by Robin

In a way, creating recipes is like reinventing the wheel. Somewhere, sometime, someone has put together a dish similar to what you’re creating. It might have even been you, especially if you belong to a CSA farm and get similar veggies for weeks at a time from a local farm. And so it is with strawberries in salad. I’ve combined them with spinach, Parmesan and pine nuts, with radicchio, butter lettuce, and feta, and simplest of all with arugula and goat cheese. And yet a bounty of mixed spring lettuce from our DIY square foot garden plus 5 pints of strawberries and some basil from our CSA inspired me to make yet another strawberry salad.

Caprese Salad with Herbed Lime Vinaigrette

Before Adding Dressing

Recipe by Robin

With a wealth of tomatoes and basil still growing in my garden, a Caprese salad seems like a natural, except for one thing. I’m obsessive about fresh mozzarella cheese. I can barely contain my desire to eat whatever quantity comes into my house once the wrapper is open. Is it the mild taste, the texture, the way it combines with other foods? (Not the latter, since I happily enjoy it sans accompaniment.) Luckily, I discovered a sealed container of fresh mozzarella balls packed in water at the local natural foods store. The 8 oz. size is perfect for this salad, with no chopping (and sneaking bites) required. And just in time for late tomatoes and basil. The success of this salad depends upon the freshness of all 3 of these ingredients.

Baked Tomatoes

Whimsical Side Dish

Recipe adapted from Healing Foods

Sometimes I love it when I’m wrong. Like when I first read Miriam Polunin’s Healing Foods, and dismissed it because some of the nutritional information, from the carbo-loading era, was outdated. I did copy a few of the recipes before returning the book to the library, and throughout the years every one of the recipes I’ve tried has turned out fabulous. So, not only did I revise my review on Goodreads, I’m also going to order the book. Baked Tomatoes follow Carrot-Cilantro Soup, Golden Beet Soup with Herbs, and Healthy Polish Carrot Cake in the string of hit recipes from this book. To try next: Veggie Chowder. If these recipes resonate with you, perhaps you’d like to treat yourself to this bargain price cookbook as well.

Fresh Raw Tomato Sauce with Garlic and Herbs

Traditionally Served at Room Temperature

Recipe by Bruce and Robin

While perusing cookbooks and recipe websites I often get the impression that Bruce and I like garlic and herbs more than the average person. Such was the case this week when we researched fresh tomato sauce. America’s Test Kitchen wizard Christopher Kimball fries up garlic in quite a bit of oil, but strains out the garlic and adds only the oil to his sauce. Spendid Table’s food maven Lynn Rosetto Kasper rubs the serving bowl with a clove of garlic, but then discards it before adding the tomatoes. Many recipes use no garlic whatsoever. We wondered: what would happen if we just minced up some garlic and threw it into the mix? So we tried it with two small cloves.

Quick and Easy Chicken Soup

To Your Health

Recipe by Robin

Summertime colds seem so counterintuitive and unfair. Staying in bed shivering under blankets while everyone else is outdoors playing in the sun, swimming with the kids, or sipping cocktails at a barbecue just doesn’t seem right. So the other day when I felt a bit under the weather, I chose to nip the virus in the bud. In addition to getting extra rest and drinking ginger tea and lemon tea, I made chicken soup.

Greek Frittata with Spinach, Tomatoes, and Feta

Brunch is Served (Add Fruit & Muffin)

Recipe inspired by the Heavenly Café

Every couple of Sundays, and not too early, I can be seen at the nearby Heavenly Café eating their Greek Scramble with a fruit cup and a homemade muffin. Although I haven’t mastered the art of the muffin as they have, I was able to create a rather convincing Greek Scramble-like frittata today. Tomatoes aren’t quite in season here, so I did use a not-quite-seasonal ingredient. Reconstituted sundried tomatoes from last season would have been better. I tried, but my reconstituted dried tomatoes look blackish and had no smell at all. Who knows when they were dried? Before last year, and probably by quite a bit.

Golden Beet Soup with Herbs

Cheery and Unexpected Yellow Soup

Recipe inspired by Healing Foods

“I wonder how that pureed carrot cilantro soup would be with beets, like the gal from Healing Foods suggested. And what kind of herbs would we use with beets?” I pondered.

“If I were you, I’d start with golden beets and a small amount of herbs.”

Baked Tomato Sauce

Baked Tomato Sauce Over Pasta

Recipe by Barbara and Robin

Tomatoes are still coming in strong in many fall gardens. The idea for this recipe comes from my longtime friend Barbara, the only gardener I’ve ever known who grew corn in foggy Santa Cruz. Originally from Chicago, she grew a row of corn every year, even though she harvested only a few small ears. 

Orange Basil Chocolate Truffles

Orange Basil Chocolate Truffles

Recipe by Robin

Three years ago today I was married after an 11-year courtship. But something even more amazing happened that day. Kelly, my maid of honor, brought 250 truffles that she had made herself to the wedding. Her husband James assembled the commemorative boxes and they packed up one raspberry and one coffee truffle for each guest. She offered to make them along with her other maid of honor tasks like organizing the shower, shopping for dresses, finding cheap flower source, giving the toast, and being my go-to person for staying somewhat sane while planning all the details.