Open-Faced Squash and Goat Cheese Sammies

squash sandwichThere’s a perception that vegetarians are required to worship all vegetables equally. Unfortunately, embracing a meat-free diet does not mean that there are not certain members of the plant kingdom that you’d rather skip. For me, it’s raw bell peppers. For Jason, it’s summer squash, so this is a particularly tough time of year for him to stare down our farm share. As we were cooking on Saturday night, he gave me a sidelong glance over the cutting board and said, “Maybe we only need one squash for these sandwiches.”

“Two,” I said. “Trust me, squash hater. I’m going to do right by you.”

Doing right is much easier armed with some caramelized onions and a few medallions of delicious Quebecois goat cheese brought back from a weekend in Montreal. (Fear not, readers; a poutine post is coming.) Top them with some mint to balance out the richness, and you’re treading in the footsteps of angels.

A half hour later, Jason uttered the words, “This is fantastic,” and he wasn’t talking about the DVD copy of Airplane!  we were watching. Surely, there’s hope for even the most difficult-to-love veggies.

Open-Faced Squash and Goat Cheese Sandwiches Continue reading

Nukeing the Mint

IMG_1077Fresh herbs in the grocery store are a pet peeve of mine.  Unless I’m cooking for a bunch of people, I almost always end up with some left unused.  And then I put them in a cup, water covering the stems, and set them in the grocery, where they will almost certainly go to waste, me unable to throw them out because of my abhorrence of waste and they not able to keep from eventually turning into a mush.

So I was psyched to hear that I could microwave fresh herbs and, presto, get a dried version that will keep.

First, let me note that I bought this mint something like a week and a half ago.  Safely cocooned in its petroleum-based shell, this bunch was more or less the same today as it was in January.  Second, maybe it lasted because the whole thing was still attached to its roots.  Anyway… Continue reading