Garden Recipe: Fig and Bleu Bites

Figs. Blue. Sweet. Savory.

What about those four words together doesn’t sound like a mashup you want to eat and with which you want to ply your guests?  We have a struggling little fig tree that provides about enough figs to make three tablespoons of fig preserves. Sometimes more, but at least figs are here this time of year and waiting for you to use them.

These are easy, so good, and you can even buy the fig preserves instead of making them.  This recipe makes about 3 dozen.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup flour
• ½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 4 ounces Point Reyes Original Blue cheese (or something equally as wonderful), crumbled
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Fig preserves, about 3 Tablespoons

RECIPE:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the flour, butter, blue cheese and a few grinds of black pepper in the bowl of a food processor. Process until the dough just comes together and starts to form a ball.

Dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few times. Roll out to 1/8 inch thick with a floured rolling pin, wrap in waxed paper and refrigerate for about an hour.

Cut 1” rounds out of the dough with a floured cutter and transfer the rounds to the parchment-lined baking sheet. Using the back of a round half-teaspoon measure or your knuckle, make an indentation in the top of each dough round. Spoon about ¼ teaspoon of fig preserves into each indentation, using your finger to push the preserves as best as possible into the indentations.

Bake the savories for 10 – 14 minutes, until the preserves are bubbling and the pastry is light golden on the bottom. Let cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool. You can make these a day ahead and keep them in two layers separated by waxed paper in an airtight container.

GARDEN RECIPE: Apple and Butternut Squash Soup

It’s beginning to look like autumn, and on some days it feels like it too.   The summer vegetable garden is sad and scraggly, so I know that it’s time for apples, persimmons, pomegranates and winter squash.  And soup.  This one.

• ½ c unsalted butter (or ½ c good olive oil, if you would rather)
• 3 large leeks, white part only, cleaned and chopped
• 1 tsp minced fresh ginger
• 2 ½ lbs butternut or Kabocha squash, peeled, seeded and cut into chunks
• ½ lb of your favorite variety of apples, peeled, seeded, cored and chopped
• Chicken broth or vegetable broth
• Salt and pepper to taste
• ¼ c chopped flat leaf parsley
• Crème fraiche

Cook the leeks in the butter until soft and translucent. Add ginger, squash and apples and pour enough broth to cover 1/3 of the vegetables.  Add salt and pepper to taste, bring to a simmer and cover the pot.

When everything is completely soft, puree the mixture in batches and return to the pot.  If it is too thick, add more broth to get the consistency you like.  Adjust the seasoning to taste and serve finished  with a sprinkle of parsley and a spoonful of crème fraiche.

Photo Credit: Soup, Creative Commons, Soup by monikalohmann is licensed under CC0 Public Domain. 

Garden Recipe: TOMATOES FIGS CHEESE

We have had a tiny fig tree in our back yard for seven years…so maybe we are graced with four or five velvety, crunchy, voluptuous figs each summer.  This year it is veritably FILLED with figs.  It’s still a tiny tree, but it’s trying harder this time. Daydreaming of my favorite garden fruits and vegetables (figs and tomatoes) makes me want to eat this until October.

Ingredients

• 1 T Balsamic vinegar
• ¼ t fine sea salt
• ¼ c really good olive oil
• 3 T pine nuts
• 1 perfectly ripe large tomatoes
• ½ lb (or more!) ripe figs, cut in quarters
• 1 oz crumbled Roquefort cheese
• 1 t fresh thyme leaves
• Black pepper

Whisk the vinegar and salt together, then slowly whisk in the olive oil.  Toast the pine nuts in a small skillet until light golden.  Spread tomato slices on a large plate and scatter the figs and pine nuts over the tomatoes.  Sprinkle with the cheese and thyme then drizzle with the dressing and finish with freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Photo Credits:
Roquefort Cheese, Creative Commons, Roquefort Cheese by Cyn Furey is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Figs, Creative Commons, this year, i have discovered an appreciation of figs by snickclunk is licensed under CC by 2.0
Tomatoes, Public Domain Dedication, Tomatoes by Image Party is licensed under CC0 1.0

Garden Cocktails: Backyard Fig Margarita
Pick some figs from your little tree in the back yard, or get them from the Farmers’ Market…

BACKYARD MARGARITA

1 ½  oz. silver tequila
½  oz. fig simple syrup (it’s easy, you can make it)
½ oz. Cointreau or Triple Sec
¼  oz. fresh lime juice

Combine all ingredients and shake with ice. Strain into an ice-filled glass and garnish. With a lime wedge on a pick with a fig wedge.

Fig  Simple Syrup
1 pint figs
2 cups water
1/2 cup sugar

Remove the stems from the figs and cut into quarters.. Bring the figs, sugar and water  to a boil, lower the heat and simmer until the syrup has reduced by half. Let cool to room temperature and strain into a clean glass jar.

Photo Credit: Pinterest

A Weed of the People

We find vegetable gardening is a little difficult when we can’t water. This is why you need to grow ARUGULA  in your garden. It is actually a weed that doesn’t need much water, it grows wild in many parts of Europe, especially Mediterranean areas and it will grow wild in your garden, too. People in Europe pick it wild and throw it in their salads. Arugula is a weed of the people.

And it’s good for you, high in vitamin A, folic acid, iron, potassium, calcium. It’s a veritable miracle. The small, young leaves are our salad of choice (see previous recipe for Freitasalad), but as the leaves grow larger and stronger in flavor, sauté them like spinach and they lose their bite and take on an entirely different flavor and texture, not as slimy as spinach can be.

ARUGULA SAUTE

1 T olive oil

½ LB mixed wild and cultivated mushrooms

1 small red onion, slivered

4 garlic cloves, minced

1/3 c dry vermouth

¼ t coarse sea salt

A pinch of red pepper flakes

8 c washed, dried arugula

parmigiano

Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium heat and add mushrooms , onions and garlic for about 4 minutes.  Add vermouth and continue to sauté until liquid is mostly absorbed.  Add salt, red pepper flakes and arugula and stir until the arugula is wilted, about 3 additional minutes.  Sprinkle with a little cheese and never eat spinach again.

Image Credit:
Arugula – Creative Commons, Mushrooms with arugula by yosoynuts is licensed under CC by 2.0