In Cucina

This grilled eggplant is the beginning of this evening's dinner and an another dish a bit later.  Pasta sauce!

We have had a huge increase in tomato harvest.  So yesterday I put them into the food processor.  The left jar is the roma tomatoes.  The right is the heirloom purple and the yellow cherries.  All of the roma and about a third of the others went into tonight's sauce.

First into the pan was olive oil, onions, garlic, mushrooms, and some carrots for a bit of sweetness.  When these sweat down, in went the next layer.  Some diced banana peppers, the tomato puree, seasonings, and a bit of leftover white wine.   oh, and the eggplant.

This simmered all the while the pasta water came up to a boil and the pasta cooked.  I have to say it was pretty darned good.  The eggplant and mushrooms gave it richness and flavor that meat usually contributes.  I just love playing in the kitchen!

Until next time,

Ciao!

Birdie in Cucina

In Cucina

Tonight's dinner is brought to you by our garden.  Tomatoes, peppers, kale, eggplant.  There is onion and garlic, some anchovy paste, salt and red pepper flakes.  This is the first part of the saute.

This is after the the addition of the kale and left over pulled pork.

Addition of the cooked pasta and a bit of pasta water.  It tasted fresh and flavorful.

We need to be ready for a lot of tomatoes in the near future.  They are ripening fairly quickly now.  I may have to freeze them or learn to can very quickly.

Until next time,

Ciao!

Birdie in Cucina

In Cucina Al Fresco

It is a lovely afternoon.  So lovely that my work from home husband is working al fresco on the patio and I am joining him to prepare dinner and harvest from the garden.  Here we have the first of the peppers to harvest, some cherry tomatoes with one heirloom and one each of the eggplants were grew.  Now I am no expert, but the eggplants havent increased in size in over a week, so I am assuming that they are ready to be picked.  I specifically chose them for their small size.  I am hoping to combine all of these beauties in some way in the next day or two.  Next to the bowl, I have some garlic chives freshly cut along with some other herbs.

The chives will go in some garlic mashed potatoes later today.  The herbs are for the herb butter to baste the grill roasted turkey that is in the grill as I type.   i am using the same technique that I used for the duck earlier - Indirect grilling.  This means on my gas grill I turn on just the rear and from burners.  I place the turkey on the stand up rack over an oven safe casserole.  This gets placed in the center of the grill and the lid is closed.  The heat surrounds the turkey to cook it.  I will baste occasionally with the herb butter, but I also slid some under the breast skin to keep that from drying out and add flavor.

I love cooking outside and we have really used our grill a lot this summer.  I foresee us continuing well into fall and maybe on nicer winter days too.  Beats heating up the house when it is warm, that's for sure.

i started the turkey pretty early, mainly so it has time to rest and be ready for eating when we are ready.  This turkey isn't very large, about as big as the duck was really.  So it should not take more than 2 hours, if that long.  I will do the potatoes closer to diner time.  Add salad and left over asparagus and that's dinner!

Tonight is graduation night for puppy school.  It starts at 6:30, so I want dinner to be ready before we go.  Not sure if we will eat before or after puppy school and that is okay, because I think everything will sit well if we need to eat it after.  Turkey is great for left overs and hubby can have his hot turkey sandwiches he loves so much.

Until next time,

Ciao!

Birdie in Cucina