Beer Battered Peppers with Goat Cheese

We knew we were getting peppers in our farm share and so Joe decided to make chile relleno. When we picked up the share, however, the peppers were tiny! Instead of the peppers being stuffed, then, it kind of became a giant mash on the plate. It was much tastier than it looks here. For the beer batter, we used Negra Modelo.

Green Bean Salad

This was adapted from this. I find so many good recipes from this blog! In Heidi Swanson's write-up, she said in her picture she under-dressed the beans. I think I have the opposite problem!

Spicy corn soup

We adapted this recipe from this one - basically by omitting the lobster and substituting vegetable broth for the fish stock. It's deceptively spicy!

Fig, Ricotta, and Olive Tapanade Pizza

This was suggested to us by my brother-in-law after giving us our first pizza stone about a year ago. The dried figs get all warm and gooey in the oven and add a nice sweetness to offset the olive tapanade.

Fridge-Purge Tapas

We had a ton of random items in the fridge so we decided to do a good ol'-fashioned fridge purge. The main event was definitely the patatas bravas, Joe's favorite pub-food in Spain, with a homemade bravas sauce. We also had some olives, Roth's Cheese, and cashews.

Ben's Chili Bowl Vegetarian Chili and Five Guys Burgers and Fries Fries

Joe and I went into DC for a Washington Nationals game and devised quite the delicious plan. One of the unique things about Nationals Park is that they invited local dives to have satellite eateries in the ballpark. Ben's Chili Bowl was a favorite of ours when we lived in the District because they actually serve vegetarian chili, but the fries are only average. Five Guys has met renown for its fries, however. And so, I got the chili while Joe got the fries and we combined them for the best chili cheese fries on the planet!

Spaghetti Squash with Roasted Tomatoes

Few hands-off meals end up being as tasty as this one! Halve a spaghetti squash and put on a cookie sheet to roast for an hour and halve a bunch of cherry tomatoes, sprinkle with olive oil, and then do the same!

Tacos

It's sad that these look so gross because they were excellent - sauteed potatoes, peppers, and onions with pepper jack cheese and black bean refried beans (so much better tasting than traditional refried beans!).

Corn soup with roasted red pepper and pine nut spread

This recipe came from the Market Vegetarian cookbook by Ross Dobson. Everything we have ever cooked from this has been excellent and all of it is simple.

Taco pizza

Joe's friends live in Green Point, a short walk from Williamsburg, where hipsters and vegan eateries abound. The latter really entices us! A favorite in that neighborhood is a vegan pizzeria that uses soy meats, vegan cheeses, and heaps of imagination to create really interesting pies. We'd previously had a vegan BBQ chicken pie with vegan cheddar, BBQ sauce, and soy chicken that was completely amazing. Joe came back this time talking about a taco pie with black bean spread, peppers, salsa, and cheddar. We took a crack at it using black bean refried beans, pico de gallo, sauteed peppers, pepper jack cheese, and homemade guacamole on a whole wheat crust. Joe added hot sauce to his too. Yum!

Red velvet cake donut & Trader Joe's Veggie Samosas

We had a LONG ride back to Charlottesville. We'd tried to hold out to get home and cook something, since we hadn't had a home-cooked meal in a few days, but by the time we got back we were too exhausted to cook. We split a red velvet cake doughnut Joe had bought the day before in Brooklyn and made 4 Trader Joe's frozen vegetable samosas, which we ate with some Trader Joe's Mango Ginger Chutney. The samosas left a LOT to be desired! The dough they use just is not quite what is traditionally used and seems more like phyllo than crust. We are huge fans of the chutney.

Engagement party

Not only did the camera die, but I didn't have a charger with me, so the weekend's meals went unrecorded. This is a close representation, however! We were going away to attend our friends' engagement party. We had the simple classic, manicotti.

Burger King

My camera died right as I took a picture, perhaps my greatest setup ever, of my meal in the BK crown. A little known vegetarian fact: every Burger King across this great land has a veggie burger on the menu. I'm serious -- rural, urban, stand-alone, gas station -- every Burger King serves up either a Morning Star or Boca Burger veggie burger. Mine looked just like the one above, except with about a half cup of mayonnaise slathered on for good measure. I also had a small fry and a low fat chocolate milk.

Tavola

Joe and I were spent the weekend apart, so we went out for a nice dinner together before we left town. A new Italian restaurant, Tavola, opened in the Belmont neighborhood that I was dying to try. We were not sorry! We had bruschetta (tuna and white bean, heirloom tomato and mozzarella, and portabello and goat cheese), linguine pomodoro with local heirloom tomatoes, and angel hair with sauteed shrimp. And, of course, lots of chianti!

Vegetables in Trader Joe's Punjab Spinach Sauce

Time to clear out the fridge for this week's farmshare pick-up! We'd bought this bottle of Punjab Spinach Sauce at Trader Joe's the last time we drove by one (it's funny how much you don't appreciate TJ's until you move somewhere without one!) but hadn't used it right away and then it fell into the Never Neverland that is our pantry! When we recently moved I unearthed it and made sure to use it. I sauteed some green bell pepper, chopped red onion, potato, heirloom tomatoes, and peas in the sauce and 30 minutes later we had this delicious mess:

Basil Mediterranean Bistro

We attended a Town Hall session with Rep. Tom Perriello on the health care bill and by the time we got home we were too hungry to cook. Basil Mediterranean Bistro is one of my favorite takeout places in town. The falafel platter is enormous and the food is delicious! As you can see, this comes with basmati rice, sauteed peppers/onions/mushrooms, fresh hummus and tabbouleh salad, flat bread, yogurt sauce, a salad, and the falafel. I really appreciate how many fresh vegetables they can cram into this box!

Tacos

Joe has become quite the tacoist these past few weeks. Every time we get a green bell pepper in our share, I know taco night is just around the corner. Joe's latest trick is soaking the potato in water for a few hours before frying - it draws out some of the starch and makes for an extra crispy potato. I make the guacamole - just a little red onion, half a lime's juice, and a few grinds of salt and pepper.

Veggie burger and kettle corn

Sunday was a picnic at our friend's house to celebrate her new digs! I completely forgot to take a picture of my veggie burger, but the good people at Amy's have a much more enticing picture on their website anyway. Imagine this but with a single slice of pepper jack cheese - it was yummy! Later, we went to the Old Crow Medicine Show "Big Surprise Tour" at the Pavillion, and I got a Charlottesville staple, Blue Ridge Kettle Korn. The kettle corn is cooked in a giant copper cauldron and stirred with an enormous wooden spoon -- it's awesome!

Caprese sandwich

We went to Veritas Vineyard's Starry Nights on Saturday, which is a bring your own picnic event. We got so many tomatoes in our share this week, it seemed like the only thing to do was make sandwiches with (some of) them.

We got the beet...

For some reason all of the pictures of last night's dinner look fuzzy! But, as you can see, the beets finally made their debut and they were delicious! To reheat the roasted onions, potatoes, and beets, we fried them in some olive oil on the stove top. We also fried the pierogies in another pan with some onions. Yum!

Pierogies, onions, and apple sauce

Confession: This meal was not intended to be so mono-color! Originally we'd planned to serve roasted beets with this meal, but after two hours in the oven, the beets still weren't quite ready and we just couldn't wait any longer! The pierogies are imported from the Pierogi Palace in Rahway, NJ. The pierogies are made fresh daily in an old, non-descript store front on a busy street nestled between to highways and are simply amazing.

Look for those beets soon!

Portobello, carmelized onion, and goat cheese pizza

Pizza night is my favorite night of the week, although the particular day changes each week. We use fresh whole wheat pizza dough from my favorite shop in Charlottesville, Mona Lisa Pasta. This week's pizza is topped with Caramont goat cheese, which we get from Horse & Buggy Produce, and carmelized onions and portabello mushrooms.

Spicery kidney beans

In college, I did my study abroad semester in Beijing, China at Peking University. My favorite dish the whole time I was there was also the first dish I had in China, at a place just outside the South Gate of campus called the Nine-Headed Bird. They had a menu with English-translation available for foreign students, although it was evident that a native-speaker did the translating. This dish, listed as "Spicery kidney beans", consists of Chinese string beans and Sichuan spices. One of the first things I did when I arrived back in the States was to visit a Chinese grocery and purchase the two spices I could recognize from this dish - dried red peppers and "Sichuan dried pepper". I admit that there is something still missing from this recipe that I cannot quite recall, but it will do until I somehow make it back there.

We used American-style string beans because we'd picked some up in our CSA-share this week and enjoyed long-grain brown rice with the meal.

Chana masala

Joe made chana masala, an Indian dish using chickpeas, served with naan, a flat bread. You can increasingly find naan in the bakery section of most supermarkets, although we've found we prefer the frozen naan. Trader Joe's and Tandoor Chef offer cheap and delicious frozen naan. We had some bibb lettuce that needed eating, so I also made a salad with crushed walnuts and parmesan.

Caprese platter & spaghetti squash

A lot of the things we cook these days are heavily inspired (...out of necessity) by the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share we subscribe to, Horse & Buggy Produce. This is our first year doing a CSA and it has introduced us to what seems like a whole new universe of produce. A lot of these recipes are new to us because of that. This was another "first" week - spaghetti squash. Tonight's dinner was a caprese platter and spaghetti squash with a chunky marinara sauce.