Local Ingredients: Mint Glazed Carrots

Do you ever see a recipe on a blog that you know you absolutely have to try? When I saw a recipe for Mint Glazed Carrots on Foodies @ Home, I knew that I had to make it immediately.  Luckily, I had a lovely bunch of carrots sitting in the fridge from Siena Farms to work with and I decided to adapt this recipe to make this lovely side dish on Thursday night.

I washed the carrots and peeled them.  I started to slice the carrots and I had to pause to take a picture.  Isn't this purple carrot simply gorgeous?

I sliced all of the carrots and gave it a quick toss in a bowl with salt and fresh cracked peppercorns.

Since my skillet was already in use, I warmed up a wok on the stove-top.  I added a few pats of unsalted butter along with my carrots.  I then added the rest of my ingredients.  First, I added two minced cloves of red Russian garlic (also from Siena Farms).

I then added four generous tablespoons of agave nectar.  The original recipe called for honey but I decided to make a healthy substitute.  Plus, I love using the agave that I picked up when I was in Cozumel whenever I can.

I then added a half cup of a nice dry reisling Bret picked up on his way home from the gym.

I added a few more pats of butter (I'd say about two tablespoons of butter in the dish overall) and let the carrots cook in the butter and wine sauce.

While the carrots were cooking, I washed, dried and finely chopped up a handful of mint.  When the wine cooked down and the carrots cooked through, the sauce had thickened up nicely to provide a nice glaze.  Instead of mixing it in with the carrots, I topped the carrots with the fresh mint and it was ready to serve.

I loved how the carrots almost looked like beets from the bright purple carrots.  The carrots were sweet and I thought that the agave nectar would make the carrots overly sweet but the wine and mint really balanced the sweetness out. 

We ate the carrots for dinner as a side to our baked panko-crusted chicken nuggets and Olivia's Organics herb salad (topped with green onion and goat cheese). 

Thanks to Foodies @ Home for sharing this recipe.  Don't you love finding new recipes on food blogs and trying them out in your kitchen? 

What are some food blogs you look to for inspiration in your kitchen?

One last reminder to enter my CSN Stores giveaway, which ends on Sunday night at 11:59 PM!

"Clean Out the Fridge" Potato and Mushroom Hash

If you cook as much as I do, you're bound to have lots of leftover ingredients in your fridge.  As I've written about before, I absolutely hating wasting food so I try to utilize and maximize every ingredient before it reaches its expiration date.

Last Thursday, I already had a simple summer meal planned out of grilled hot dogs and corn on the cob.  I wanted to add a small side dish to this meal but I also wanted to use the ingredients pictured below that had been sitting in my fridge for way too long:

I decided to go with the first idea that popped in my head - a potato and mushroom hash!  The preparation was simple enough and mostly involved lots of chopping.  Bret and I slowly got to work on the ingredients while we caught up with each other about our respective day.  I honestly think this is what I enjoy most about cooking with Bret - the bonding that we do as we spend time together.  But I digress.

Bret washed and chopped up the two potatoes.

Meanwhile I got to work chopping up the mushrooms at a similar size to the potatoes.  We wanted to make sure everything was cut uniformly so that all the ingredients cooked evenly.

Around this time, Bret got the skillet ready by heating it at medium-high heat with vegetable oil.  When the skillet was sizzling, he added the potatoes since they would take longer to cook through.  We liberally seasoned the potatoes and I chose a mix of seasonings like salt, fresh cracked peppercorns, cayenne and cumin.

While the potatoes were cooking, Bret got to work on chopping one large onion.

And I remembered that we had some leftover red Russian garlic from Siena Farms.  The bulbs were on the smaller side so I roughly chopped up one entire bulb.

Then I got to work slowly adding each ingredient to the skillet.  I started with the onions and mixed up the hash.  I then added the mushrooms and let those cook down a bit.  Finally I added the garlic and after giving everything a good taste, I added a bit more of the spices to make sure it was seasoned well.  I put a cover on the skillet and let all of the great flavors come together.

And it was delicious.  Of course our ingredients made a lot of potato and mushroom hash, but it was an easy leftover side dish and even better when it was re-heated!

What are your favorite "clean out the fridge" recipes?

Local Ingredients: Roasted Eggplant Pasta

Last week felt like an unbelievably long week.  By the time Friday rolled around, I was excited to head out of work and unwind with a kick-butt gym session and some time in the kitchen.  I was especially looking forward to cooking on Friday night because I had a lot of great fresh and local ingredients to work with, including some eggplants and a cucumber from my mom's garden!

While I love eggplant in any form, Bret isn't the biggest fan of its texture.  I decided to make a simple roasted eggplant pasta dish to utilize the eggplants in a way that that I thought Bret would enjoy.  I first started out by slicing my eggplant with the skin on and then eventually cubing it.

I tossed the cubed eggplant in a bowl with some extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper.

I spread the eggplant on a baking sheet and then got to work on my red Russian garlic from Siena Farms.  I have never worked with  this type of garlic before but I planned to do a simple roasted garlic preparation.  I cut off the top of the garlic bulb and found the most beautiful hints of red in the garlic cloves.

I drizzled the garlic bulb with olive oil and wrapped it in aluminum foil.  I put the garlic on the baking tray with the roasted eggplant and put it in the oven at 400 degrees for about twenty minutes. 

While the eggplant and garlic were in the oven, I put my pasta water on the stove and got to work on my pasta sauce.  Normally I would make my own sauce but I had a jar of Bertolli Marinara with Burgundy Wine open in the fridge from my beet green and bacon pizza.  Since I hate to let food go to waste, I decided to use this sauce as my base but doctor it up with some flavor. 

I added some fresh cracked peppercorns, salt, oregano, crushed red pepper flakes and onion powder.

After giving it a little taste, I also added a bit of olive oil and let the sauce simmer to infuse all of those great flavors.  I then got to work on my basil fresh from Atlas Farm.  I actually got way more basil than I expected so I suspect that there will be quite a bit of basil in my cooking this week!  I washed a bunch of leaves and finely chopped the basil.

When the garlic and eggplant were ready, I added both to my sauce, along with half of the chopped basil.  Both the eggplant and the garlic were so aromatic and added nice flavor and texture to the sauce.

While I drained the whole wheat angel hair pasta and tossed it in the sauce, Bret made a quick salad using the bag of mixed greens from Siena Farms, a cucumber from my mom's garden, and some delightful yellow cherry tomatoes.

I plated the pasta but decided something was missing.

So I topped it with a slice of Fiore Di Nonno mozzarella and some of the chopped basil.

I was really happy with this pasta sauce because it was full of flavor from the delicious Bertolli marinara base, the heat of the crushed red pepper flakes, the sweet roasted garlic and the hearty roasted eggplant.  Topping it off with the creamy mozzarella and chopped basil definitely added a fresh element to the dish.  Plus, the simple side salad was a cool refreshing contrast to this warm and hearty pasta dish.  Best of all, I absolutely love cooking with local ingredients from both local farms and from my mom's own garden!

What did you cook up this weekend?