broccoli

June – Grilled Cauliflower with Sicilian Puttanesca Relish
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June – Grilled Cauliflower with Sicilian Puttanesca Relish

Grilled Cauliflower with Sicilian Puttanesca

Grilled Cauliflower with Sicilian Puttanesca Relish

Did you know you can grill cauliflower? Well I didn’t until I recently saw a recipe for grilled and charred cauliflower. I should have thought of it really. Well, if broccoli can be grilled, cauliflower is not far behind. In the summer we grill a lot of vegetables on the BBQ (in the winter we roast), those two are our preferred ways to cook most vegetables. They develop a much deeper and often sweeter flavor as a result of the slight charring and caramelization.

This dish has a puttanesca relish with the Sicilian twist of dried fruit. Sweet and sour combinations are a classic for Sicily. The recipe is adapted from one in the New York Times for Grilled Broccoli with Apricot Puttanesca. Adapted because I only had cauliflower on hand the first time and no dried apricots. And what is puttanesca without anchovies!!! Heretical. But leave them out if you don’t like them or want to make a vegetarian option.

You need to cut the cauliflower and/or broccoli into largish chunks so it doesn’t fall though the grill. Spread the relish over it while it is still warm. We served this with a simple grilled chicken, it would be equally delicious with fish.

Note: The second time I made this I combined the cooked drained raisins, capers, olives, chiles, oregano and anchovies in the bowl of a small food processor. Processed until roughly chopped. Proceed with step 4 below.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup of yellow raisins
  • 3/4 – 1 cup of unflavored rice vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons of capers, roughly chopped
  • 2 tablespoons of pitted Kalamata olives, roughly chopped
  • 1 tablespoon of marinated Calabrian chiles in oil, minced (or pickled hot cherry peppers or a good pinch of red pepper flakes)
  • 1 teaspoon of dried oregano
  • 1 teaspoon – 1 tablespoon of minced anchovies (depending on your taste, and leave out if you are vegetarian)
  • 1/2 cup of olive oil, more as needed
  • 1/4 cup of pine nuts, briefly toasted in a dry skillet (optional)
  • Juice of 1/2 large lemon
  • 2 heads of cauliflower, cut into large pieces or an equivalent amount of broccoli or a combination
  • Kosher salt as needed
  • 1 small onion or shallot, thinly sliced (optional)
Sicilian Puttanesca Relish

Sicilian Puttanesca Relish

See the note above for an optional preparation method.

Grilled Cauliflower and Broccoli with Sicilian Puttanesca Relish

Grilled Cauliflower and Broccoli with Sicilian Puttanesca Relish

Method:

  1. Put the dried raisins in a small saucepan, add enough vinegar to cover. Slowly bring the mixture to a simmer. Immediately remove from the heat and strain the raisins, reserving the cooking liquid.
  2. Mix the raisins with the capers, olives, chilies, anchovies, and oregano. Set aside.
  3. If using, briefly toast the pine nuts in a dry skillet, pour them out onto a small plate to cool. Watch them carefully as they burn quickly.
  4. In a separate bowl, whisk 1/8 cup of the reserved raisin cooking liquid and lemon juice with 1/2 cup of olive oil to make a dressing.
  5. Heat your grill to high (or oven to 425 degrees F). Toss the cauliflower (and/or broccoli) with olive oil to coat and lightly season with salt.
  6. Place the cauliflower (and/or broccoli) directly on the grill and cook until the outsides begin to char. Flip and cook a few more minutes or until tender. Alternately roast on a parchment paper lined baking sheet in the oven for 30-40 minutes until browned and cooked through.
  7. Remove from the grill and toss with the puttanesca and dressing until evenly coated. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with the optional onion slices and pine nuts. Or, reserve and serve at room temperature later.
Grilled Cauliflower with Sicilian Puttanesca Relish

Grilled Cauliflower and Broccoli with Sicilian Puttanesca Relish

I think this recipe would be perfect for serving at your BBQ on the 4th of July. It can be made ahead and is delicious at room temperature.

I know this holiday will be quite strange for many of us. Here in Fort Bragg CA (there is much discussion about changing our name since General Bragg was a slave owning Confederate with a bad reputation) there will be no fireworks, no parade, no outdoor salmon feed, no craft show, and no beer or wine tasting tours of the town. It is indeed a very unsettling time to be an American.

We will celebrate with a BBQ for two out on the deck, toasting the holiday with an Aperol Spritz.

And I think the folks at Fiesta Friday will want to add this side dish to their party. It’s Fiesta Friday #335 hosted by Angie and cohosted this week by Petra @ Food Eat Love

Click on the Fiesta Friday link above to see all the treats and crafts other bloggers are bringing to the virtual party.

Stay safe, be well. Let me know how you will be celebrating this holiday.

 

May – Broccoli Salad to Bridge the Seasons
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May – Broccoli Salad to Bridge the Seasons

It’s spring, but the weather here does not exactly match the season. It’s cool and overcast most days. But it’s impossible to resist the call of the BBQ and eating outside. The question is what to serve, do you have some favorite BBQ sides? Fresh summer tomatoes are still months away. A salad that bridges the seasons is needed. This broccoli salad is perfect. Roasted riced broccoli, crisped on the edges, is the main component. Add in pine nuts, garlic, lemon, dates, red onion, and sheep’s milk feta for additional flavor and deliciousness. It’s briny, crunchy, sweet, and tart. All in a single bite! I find raw broccoli a chore to chew, roasting softens it a little. I found that roasting also adds an additional toasty element. The broccoli chars slightly and crisps at the edges of the sheet pan.

Broccoli Salad

Many groceries carry riced broccoli but I don’t recommend it for this recipe. The commercially available riced mixes contain a large percentage of stem. You want the florets only for this recipe. It only takes a minute to rice the heads in a food processor. Purchase a large head and save the stems for another recipe. Try this garbanzo bean free recipe for broccoli stem hummus. Doesn’t that sound interesting? And a wonderful alternative for anyone watching their carbs.

Riced Broccoli Salad

Ingredients:

  • 1 large head of broccoli, florets only, very finely chopped in the food processor
  • 1 cup raw pine nuts
  • 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive or avocado oil
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • Freshly ground pepper
  • Zest of 1 lemon, organic if possible
  • 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped or shredded on microplane
  • 4 dates – pitted and chopped into raisin sized pieces
  • 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
  • 6 ox of feta cheese, crumbled or cut into small cubes
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • 2 additional tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Method:

  1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F, 220 degrees C
  2. Line a large sheet pan with parchment paper
  3. In a large bowl combine the broccoli, pine nuts, olive or avocado oil, zest of 1 lemon, garlic, salt and pepper. Mix well with your hands and spread on the parchment lined sheet pan.
  4. Bake for about 15 minutes until the broccoli and pine nuts are starting to brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes.
  5. Add the broccoli to a large salad bowl. Toss with the lemon juice, wine vinegar and olive oil. Taste for salt and add as needed.
  6. Add the red onion, dates and feta. Mix again.

You can either serve this salad immediately or chill for up to 2 days. It’s a great do-ahead salad that won’t wilt once the weather warms. Also, without mayonnaise, it’s good for picnics.

Riced Broccoli Salad

 

 

 

November in the garden – salad greens, broccoli, peas, carrots, artichokes
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November in the garden – salad greens, broccoli, peas, carrots, artichokes

Thank goodness we got some rain overnight. My garden has been getting along with occassional water from the hose but I don’t think veggies like it as much as rain water. Do you notice a difference after a rain? I do, they seem to perk up and go through a growth spurt.

The broccoli rabe is starting to form little heads. I may harvest a bit to add to pasta this weekend. Planting three varieties of broccoli is an experiment, in addition to the broccoli rabe I’ve planted purple sprouting broccoli and regular ones. We’ve had some warm weather during the day so they are getting a good start. In the past the cabbage worms and aphids got most of the harvest. I’m being diligent this year about picking off cabbage worm eggs and watching for aphids.

broccoli rabe

broccoli rabe

The cauliflower is standing tall, but there are no heads yet.

The lettuce is looking amazing! We had our first full salad from the garden last night. It was gorgeous with all those colors, textures and leaf shapes. I added fava leaves and trimmings from the pea plants.

fava beans and lettuce

fava beans and lettuce

I plan to scatter some more arugula seeds this weekend. We love it so, and it gets eaten quickly.

Arugula

Arugula

The watermelon radishes I planted seem to have become squirrel food! I’ll replant and cover them with a wire basket to keep the critters away. The radishes were purposely inter-planted with some spicy mixed greens, that usually keeps the furry pests away. Not this time, they selectively dug up all the young radishes.

The snap and snow peas are growing tall though.

nap peas, snow peas, and mesclun

snap peas, snow peas, and mesclun

That’s some spicy mesclun in the front, see the holes where the squirrels dug up the radishes? Grrrr…

carrots and radishes in containers

carrots and radishes in containers

Although I have many gardening failures over the years, the one that frustrates me the most are carrots. They should be easy to grow, right? Well, I have had terrible luck so far. Recently I decided to try another method, containers. I had some deep nursery containers that were sitting around waiting for me to stop being lazy and recycle back to the nursery. I thought I would use them, plant some radishes in the same container. So far, so good. I initially planted pelleted seeds (which are larger and supposed to make it easier to space the carrots), but the germination rate was terrible! So, I purchased several seed varieties and plan to thin the carrots when they are a couple of inches tall.

mini coldframe

mini coldframe – greenhouse

This mini-greenhouse is on the back deck, I’m hoping it will allow me to keep growing lettuces throughout the winter. It will get more sun once the magnolia tree looses the rest of it’s leaves.

artichoke plant

artichoke plant

The artichoke plants are coming back with the cooler wet weather. Last spring we had tons of them. This plant looks as if it could use separating out into at least 3 new ones. They grow like weeds here. Because my neighbor likes the flowers, I let some of them go to seed. Every since they have been self sowing themselves everywhere, even into cracks in the sidewalk.

artichoke plant growing from a crack in the sidewald

artichoke plant growing from a crack in the sidewald

 

October in the garden – what’s happening?
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October in the garden – what’s happening?

I can’t believe it is almost Halloween and the beginning of November! Our days are still warm although nights are cooler. It’s been a few weeks since I posted anything about the garden. Things are growing but there’s not much to harvest yet. I have been able to pick some lettuce leaves to add to a salad, the heads themselves are still developing and I don’t want to stress them by picking too much. I take the biggest of the outer leaves and leave the rest of the head, more seedlings were planted today. Once the cold weather hits everything will slow down.

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The broccoli and cauliflower have almost reached the top of their protective wire cover. They’ll soon need to take their chances with the elements and critters.

Speaking of critters, something has been nibbling at the young lettuce plants. It doesn’t look like snails or slugs, they would have taken it roots and all! Got to be squirrels, mice, or the monster cat. I covered them again with a spare wire basket. My garden feeds the neighborhood!

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Young lettuce, ready to be planted.

The peas are looking good and getting a head start before cold weather hits.

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We are supposed to get rain tomorrow, fingers crossed for the garden. Not so good for the Halloween crowd. And, I do mean crowd. We get carloads of kids in the neighborhood from all over Oakland. I love the little ones, not so much the teenagers.

October in the garden – cabbage family (broccoli and cauliflower)
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October in the garden – cabbage family (broccoli and cauliflower)

On August 7th I planted seeds for several types of broccoli, cauliflower, beets, kale and chard. These are the staples (along with lettuce and onions) of my fall and winter garden. They were seeded in flats on my back deck so I could keep an eye on them. I covered them with a plastic lid to keep a constant moisture level. Once the first leaves emerged I removed the cover. You can see from the picture below that the seeding flats are recycled plastic containers from the grocery store. I punched holes in the bottom, then set them in a shallow pan with water or on part of a commercial seed starting system. I’ve used the APS system for seed starting from Gardener’s Supply. It includes a tray as a water reservoir, a rack, a heavy duty fabric capillary mat, planting cells, and a greenhouse cover. I’ve found the included planting cells are too shallow for most vegetables (ok for lettuce). However the other parts of the system are very helpful in maintaining the consistent moisture required for seed germination. They are especially valuable if you will be away for a few days or get busy and forget your seeds. Your baby seedlings are kept safe from pests and disease when they are the most vulnerable.

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IMG_2016Once the young plants had a set of true leaves (the first leaves to emerge are called cotyledons and are not representative of the leaves you will see later), they were ready for the garden. I transplanted them into the garden at the end of September. They will do fine over the winter even with a light frost.

The broccoli and cauliflower went into one of my raised beds. Because there were previously tomatoes in that location, I added quite a bit of compost and organic fertilizer. Tomatoes are heavy feeders and deplete the soil of nutrients. Onions are good companion plants for the cabbage family. There are chives at one end of the bed and I planted some scallions between the young plants. Thyme and lemon verbena are at the other end of the bed, the aromatic herbs are reported to deter cabbage worms which have been a problem in the past. I tossed in a handful of yellow nasturtium seeds, they are a decoy for black aphids. I’ve noticed that black aphids like chives as well, maybe they will leave my broccoli and cauliflower alone this year!

Cole transplants

Broccoli and cauliflower transplants

You can see the last of my tomato plants in the raised bed behind, I can’t bear to pull them out yet as there are still some green ones on the vines. Their time is limited though as that bed is scheduled to be planted with peas.

I need to protect my plants from deer that love to lunch in my garden (not to mention the birds and squirrels and the monster cat), I covered the young plants with some wire screening left over from another project.

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It’s not too late for you to plant cauliflower and broccoli (or chard and kale) in Northern California; but you will need to buy the small plants at your local nursery as 6-packs. Avoid the ones with roots coming out of the bottom. And don’t bother with Brussels sprouts, see my note below. There will be more on chard, kale and beets in my next post.

A note on Brussels sprouts: you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t mentioned them yet, although they are one of my favorites. Brussels sprouts need five months from the time they are seeded to the time they are ready to harvest around December 1st. That means seeding no later than May 15th and planting in the garden by July 1st. In May they are not anywhere on my radar. And in July, I am enjoying the glory of the first tomatoes. My first thoughts of Brussels sprouts occur in October with Thanksgiving on the horizon. What to do? I buy those beautiful stalks at the farmer’s market. They are almost as good as home grown.