Sally Maraventano's eggplant recipes

Rigatoni alla Norma

This dish was named in honor of the Sicilian composer Bellini, for his opera “Norma.” We were served Rigatoni alla Norma at La Battiata, a wonderful family-owned ristorante at the gates of the Piazza Armerina in Sicily. Hanging on a sign below the restaurant name was the phrase Cucina Casalinga, which means “homestyle cooking.” This delighted me because it is also the name my cooking school.

TOMATO SAUCE (CAN BE MADE AHEAD OF TIME)

¼ cup of olive oil

½ onion chopped

2 garlic gloves, minced

1 28-ounce can of crushed plum tomatoes or 1-1/2 lbs fresh, peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

4 basil leaves, torn

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, add the onion and garlic, and sauté until translucent. Add the tomatoes, salt, pepper and basil and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes. Sauce can be made ahead and stored in the refrigerator for several days or in the freezer for six months.

PASTA AND EGGPLANT

2 eggplants, thinly sliced

salt

2 cups or more of olive oil or vegetable oil

1 pound of rigatoni pasta

1 cup of grated Ricotta Salata or 1 cup of freshly grated Romano cheese

1. Sprinkle the eggplant with salt, weigh it down with a heavy pan, and let it stand for 30 minutes in a colander. Drain and pat thoroughly dry.

2. Pour the oil into a large, deep, heavy skillet and deep-fry the eggplant until it is golden on both sides. Drain well on paper towels and set aside.

3. Cook the pasta in 6 quarts of boiling water, to which 2 tablespoons of salt has been added, until al dente (about 7 to 10 minutes). Drain, and toss with the Tomato Sauce. Top each serving with eggplant slices and some of the Ricotta Salata or Romano cheese. Pass additional grated cheese at the table.

Caponata

(Sicilian Eggplant Relish)

Caponata -- capunatina in Sicilian -- is a wonderful sweet and sour relish that my grandmother made every Sunday as part of the Antipasto course we ate before our dinner.

 

3 ripe, medium-sized eggplants (about 2-1/2 lbs)

salt (to sprinkle on eggplant)

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil plus 1/3 cup pure olive oil

2 large onions, coarsely chopped

4 stalks celery, coarsely chopped

1 12-ounce can of crushed tomatoes or tomato puree (or 3/4 lb. fresh, peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes)

3 fresh basil leaves, slivered

1 teaspoon of salt

½ teaspoon of pepper

¼ cup of capers, drained and rinsed

1 cup of small green olives, pitted and sliced

1-1/2 tablespoons of sugar, or more to taste

scant ¼ cup of red wine vinegar

1. Remove the stems from the eggplants and discard. Cut unpeeled eggplant into ½-inch cubes and salt liberally; drain in a colander with a heavy weight, such as a pot or a glass mixing bowl, on top for 1 hour to allow the bitter juices to drain off. Rinse off salt, squeeze well, and dry with absorbent paper. Set aside.

2. Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet; add onions and celery, and sauté covered for 5 to 8 minutes until slightly softened. Pour in tomatoes, add basil, salt and pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add capers and olives and cook for 5 minutes longer. Set aside.

3. In another large skillet, sauté the eggplant in 1/3 cup of hot olive oil, adding more oil if necessary to prevent sticking (eggplant absorbs a lot of oil as it cooks). After 15 minutes, transfer the sautéed eggplant to the skillet with the onion-and-celery mixture, stirring until evenly mixed.

4. Sprinkle the mixture with sugar, pour vinegar over, and stir. Cover and simmer slowly over low heat for 10-15 minutes. Refrigerate for at least 24 hours, or up to three days. The flavor improves with time. Serve warm or cold as an antipasto, a salad, or a topping for crostini. Caponata may be frozen for up to three months.

Both recipes from 

Festa del Giardino

A harvest of recipes and family memories

by Sally Maraventano

http://cucinacasalinga.com/

Mary Kimblerlin's squash recipes

WINTER SQUASH PIE

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cup butternut squash, cheese squash or sugar pumpkin puree

2/3 cup packed brown sugar or maple syrup

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

½ teaspoon salt

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup whipping, light cream or half & half

1  9 inch pie shell, partially baked and cooled*

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a large bowl, mix all of the ingredients together and beat well.

Pour mixture into pie shell and bake for about 1hour or until the center of the pie is almost set.  Cover rim of the pastry with strips of aluminum foil if it becomes too brown

before pie is done.

Transfer pie to a wire rack and cool to room temperature.

*baked at 400 degrees F until almost done, not completely browned

N.B. Best to use glass pie dish 

DELICATA SQUASH with SHALLOTS and SHERRY*

1 large delicate squash (about 1 ¼ pounds)

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 Tablespoons unsalted butter

¼ cup dry sherry

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 cup shallots, thinly sliced (2-3 large)

4 teaspoons fresh sage, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Peel the squash, leaving the green areas in the crevices.  Trim the ends, cut the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out and discard the seeds.  Slice each half crosswise ½ inch thick.

Over medium-high heat, melt 1 Tablespoon of the olive oil and 1 Tablespoon of the butter in a skillet..  Add the squash in a single layer and cook, without moving it, until the squash begins to brown, about 2 minutes. Reduce the heat if the butter begins to burn. Flip and brown the other side. Transfer the squash to a baking dish and repeat this process until all of the squash is browned. Arrange all of the pieces of squash in the baking dish in a single layer. Sprinkle the squash with 2 Tablespoons of the sherry, salt and a few grinding of black pepper.

Over medium heat, add the remaining olive oil and butter to the skillet. Add the shallots and sprinkle them with a pinch of salt (1/8 teaspoon). Cook shallot, stirring frequently, until they turn a deep golden brown on the edges, about 3-5 minutes.  Do not burn them. 

Remove the skillet from the heat and immediately add the sage and the remaining 2 Tablespoons of sherry.  Gently stir the shallots and sherry together, scraping the browned bits on the bottom of the skillet. Sprinkle the shallots and sherry over the squash.

Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and bake until the squash is tender, about 25-30 minutes. Serves 4.

*Original recipe from Fine Cooking Magazine, November 2008

 

N.B. Delicata squash’s skin is yellow or cream colored with dark green strips.  The skin is thin and edible.  Therefore, unlike butternut squash, it does not have a long shelf life. It usually lasts only two weeks at room temperature. Its taste resembles a combination of corn and lemon zest. Its favor intensifies when roasted or sautéed. This squash also can be roasted with root vegetables or steamed and then tossed with balsamic vinegar and toasted pine nuts.  

 

Ann Bennett's Best Zucchini Pineapple Bread

For this recipe, you'll need 2 medium to large Ambler Farm zucchini.

Ingredients:
5 eggs, beaten until frothy
1-1/4 cups vegetable oil
2-1/2 cups sugar (or 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup regular)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3-1/2 cups ubleached white flour, unsifted
1 cup toasted wheat germ
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 cups firmly packed shredded zucchini (for which you'll need 2 medium to large zucchini)
1 cup drained crushed pineapple

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. To the beaten eggs, add oil slowly, then blend in sugar and vanilla. Beat until lemon-colored. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour into three loaf pans (7x3 inches or 8x3). Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Enjoy the bread!

Sauteed Squash Blossoms a la Michele Bennett

Squash blossoms bathe in sunshine at Ambler Farm.

Sautéed squash (or zucchini) blossoms

Rinse and pat dry 1-2 dozen blossoms.

Heat ½ inch canola oil in a wide sauté pan to 375 degrees (the surface of the oil should be shimmering, NOT bubbling).

While the oil is heating, beat two eggs in a bowl and add one-third to one-half cup whole wheat flour and beat mixture until thick. Using a hand beater, mix in 1/3-1/2 cup club soda until the consistency is a thin batter.

Using tongs, dredge zucchini blossoms in batter and carefully place in heated oil for about 3 minutes (do not stir).  Then flip each blossom over and saute for an additional one to two minutes. 

Remove to paper towel-lined plate to drain.  Season with salt and pepper.  Serve immediately.  These are also good with Chalula or Tabasco sauce.

 

Latest developments in the field

It’s vocabulary time at Ambler Farm, and the word of the week is: parthenocarpic. The term refers to the production of fruit and vegetables without fertilization (it comes from the Greek parthenos, which means virgin). What does it have to do with Ambler Farm? Here’s a clue: what do you think is growing under the two rows in the organic farm covered with the long white tents?

 Answer: cucumber and squash, both of which are parthenocarpic (that is, the varieties grown at Ambler Farm are). And since they don’t need to be pollinated, Farmer Ben is able to use row covers like the ones shown in the picture instead of pesticide to protect them from the cucumber beetle, which would otherwise be ravishing both their roots and leaves.

Also worth noting are the planting beds that lie under a stretchy black covering, with openings created for seedlings. This is a new biodegradable film made from corn-starch that breaks down into mulch and can also be composted. In the time it takes seedlings to set strong roots and begin to grow, the material interacts with temperature, humidity, and microorganisms in the ground and breaks down into water, carbon dioxide, and biomass without leaving any toxic residue behind. In the meantime, it keeps the soil warm, keeps out insects and weeds, prevents erosion and also promotes healthy plants by keeping dirt from splashing up onto their leaves.

 Developed in Europe, the bodegradable film has been approved for use in organic agriculture in Canada but not yet approved by the Organic Materials Review Institute in the U.S. Ambler Farm is one of the first in the area to try out this promising new technology.

In the next edition of this blog, we’ll publish a row-by-row map of the organic production garden, indicating exactly what’s growing where.







  RestaurantUpdate

Produce from Ambler Farm is gaining a following at restaurants around the area. So far, we’re selling mainly greens, but as the season goes on, we’ll sell other items as well. Barcelona and The Tuscan Oven have been serving Ambler Farm produce for a year or more. Now they're joined by some new names. Next time you dine at (or buy our produce from) any of the establishments listed below, please applaud their decision to support local food -- and Ambler Farm.



Barcelona
63 North Main Street
Norwalk, CT 06854-2703
www.barcelonawinebar.com

Dressing Room
25 Powers Court
Westport, CT 06880-3621
www.dressingroomhomegrown.com

LL Farmstand
730 Post Road East
Westport, CT

Martel Restaurant
2316 Post Road
Fairfield, CT 06824
http://www.martelrestaurant.com/hours.html

Schoolhouse Restaurant
25 Cannon Road
Wilton, CT 06897
http://www.theschoolhouseatcannondale.com/

Tuscan Oven
544 Main Avenue – Route 7
Norwalk, CT 06851
http://www.tuscanoven.com/

Post-script
If you haven’t heard the story about how the Schoolhouse’s e-mail mishap created an instant social network and won it some new friends, you can read all about it right here.

The Farmer in Winter

The farm stand is open for business (Saturdays from 10:50 to 5, and Wednesdays from 2 to 6 at the Wilton Farmers Market). In the organic farm plot south of the Red Barn, young green plants stand in neat rows in freshly composted beds, a promise of the bounty that lies ahead.

Much as it may look and feel as though things are just getting started, Ambler Farm's “farming” has actually been underway for quite some time. Here’s a brief account of what’s been happening since early January, when Ambler’s Farm Manager Ben Saunders completed his growing plan and placed his seed orders.

It takes about 36,000 seeds to produce the 18,000 or so seedlings that Ambler Farm sells and also plants in both the farm plot and educational gardens. This year, Ben is growing about 60 different vegetables and flowers. Although he orders most of the seeds from outside suppliers, he has also saved some from “gladiator” plants, as he calls them, that did particularly well last year, like the butternut squash that survived all the rain and blight and is actually still good enough to eat.

Getting from germinating seeds to seedlings in the ground is a complex logistical operation that calls for careful planning, many seed trays and a whole lot of organic potting soil – not to mention a flair for making a lot happen in a small space. Most seeds start in 10x20-inch trays with 128 cells. They’ll spend about three weeks there before Ben moves them, one sprout at a time, to trays with fewer cells. The Ambler Farm greenhouse, which is actually an extension of Farmer Ben’s house, is where all these seedlings spend the first 6 to 8 weeks. Starting in mid to late April, Ben begins to move them into an unheated hoop house for “hardening off” so that they’re accustomed to being outside before they go into the ground.

The farm plot itself contains 50 planting beds, each about 30 inches wide and 140 feet long. If you walk down to have a look, you’ll see that some beds have two rows, some have three and some even have four rows of plants growing, depending on the spacing requirements: only 100 plants in a row, for instance, for land-hungry tomatoes, versus 300 in a row for the more crowd-loving broccoli. 

 

Every variety grown at Ambler Farm has a defined harvest window – from 60 days in some cases to nearly 100 in others. For some vegetables – carrots and cabbage, to name just two of many – Ben will plant varieties that ripen at different rates so that as one fades, a new one is coming up. In other cases, Ben will continue to plant seedlings as the season progresses. There’s a good lesson here: you don’t need a lot of land to grow a lot of food (as long as you're willing to do the hard work). Thanks to “intensive" organic farming, Ambler’s relatively small production field -- it’s less than an acre – is able to produce a relatively large amount of delicious produce all season long.