What's Cooking: Clam & Kale Pasta, Clay Peas & Red Snapper, Bang Bang Salmon, Burgers & Delicata Fries & More!

This week there were a few more quicker weeknight cooking projects going on and varying the proteins a little with canned clams and sockeye salmon, but we still used a ton of local veggies and other ingredients and of course never go long without eating our pork and beef!

Garlic Miso Clam & Kale Bucatini

Some beautiful kale came in on Wednesday from Cicada Calling Farm and I couldn’t resist immediately nabbing some Dino kale for us.

I try to incorporate clams, mussels and oysters into our diet as frequently as I can for all the vitamin B12, zinc and iron they provide. It’s exponentially higher in these than in meat or even fish. And canned clams are a wonderful, affordable option.

So I just did a simple pasta here, sautéing some minced garlic in butter and then adding some homemade artichoke miso a friend had given us for a salty umami boost.

Then I added the chopped up Dino kale and deglazed the pan with some of the clam juice and put a lid on it to cook down quickly.

In the meantime, I cooked some frozen Il Supremo bucatini and when the kale was cooked, added the clams — two cans of chopped clams and one can of whole clams. I finished it with a bunch of Meyer lemon juice, chili flakes and parmesan.

Creamy Red Clay Peas & Red Snapper Strips

Sometimes I think we’re going to have plenty of leftovers to last the whole week, but when I assessed the situation on Tuesday, I decided to soak some Sea Island Red Clay Peas to throw in the Instant Pot on Wednesday.

I told our farm staffer that these clay peas are a mix of a black-eyed pea shape and to some extend flavor crossed with creamy red beans. After eating them, he concurred this was an accurate description!

First I sautéed some onions and garlic in bacon fat the base of the Instant Pot, then added the soaked and rinsed beans and then two smoked pork hocks and a pint of rooster bone broth. I set the pressure cooker to an hour and they were done before I left for the day, so then I set it to slow cook the rest of the day.

They were perfectly done by the time I got home, but then I transferred them to a pot for the stovetop so I could reduce the liquid and mash some of them up into a creamy consistency.

To go with it, I seasoned two pounds of red snapper taco strips with basic blackening seasoning (garlic and onion powders, paprika, coriander and some dried herbs) and started on two cast iron pans on the stove top and then transferred to the oven. This method worked out great because sometimes the fish can stick a little to the pan and they’re of such varying sizes that then some pieces can end up really small and flaky and this kept them in tact better!

I forgot to to get a plate picture the first night, but we had leftover sweet corn grits, beans, fish and whole roasted green cauliflower and then for leftovers the next two days I had beans in my breakfast burrito and fish on a salad for lunch!

Bang Bang Salmon with Rice & Rainbow Veggies

Another simple Pinch of Yum recipe that really hit it out of the park! We had some holiday parties on Saturday night, so we needed a nice, clean, nourishing meal for Sunday lunch (and for some meal prep for the week).

This meal delivered exactly that. The recipe calls for sweet chili sauce as part of the mayo sauce, but I don’t keep that on hand, so I substituted some homemade gochujang a friend had given us with garlic fermented honey and it came out perfect! I liked that you seasoned the fish first and then added the sauce before baking and broiling.

I also did some roasted purple Napa cabbage with a little sauce of toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, maple syrup, rice vinegar and fresh garlic and ginger. I let the cabbage roast first and then added some chopped broccolini for a few minutes at the end of the roast time.

We had it with basmati rice and some homemade cucumber and sweet pepper kimchi and chili crisp. Veggie and protein loaded with some gut loving probiotics, all the good things!

Swiss Burgers with Delicata Fries & Salad

You can never go wrong with burgers. Because we already had a big batch of roasted breakfast potatoes in the fridge for breakfast burritos, we opted for some delicata squash fries to go with the burgers instead.

They were super cute in their little half crescent shape and take well to plenty of seasoned — this time a fun spice blend a friend brought from their farm store in New York when they visited in the spring. It has salt, garlic, onion, black pepper, paprika, nori, cayenne, cloves and little sugar. I also used it, along with Worcestershire and mustard, to season the ground beef before forming into patties.

We had a delicious salad with mustards and radicchio, pink lady apple, sweet corn chow chow, pumpkin seeds, goat feta and a honey mustard balsamic dressing to go with it. As always, we ate the burgers on delicious Bellegarde brioche buns and the toppings were Swiss cheese, truffle mayo and homemade fermented bread and butter relish.

Festive Pink & Green Cookies

Apparently I tied for second place in a friendly holiday food and cocktail competition at a friend’s party with these Pistachio Matcha Strawberry Chocolate Cookies!

We had another party we had committed to first, so we only stopped by briefly to this party and contributed the cookies, but weren’t there for the voting part. ;-)

I threw these together last minute, combining elements from a couple of different recipes. I started with the strawberry white chocolate cookies from Pinch of Yum and I added pistachios, swapped dark chocolate for white chocolate and my dehydrated and then frozen strawberries from the spring for the freeze dried strawberries.

I also added almond extract with the vanilla extract (it goes so well with pistachios and strawberries) and added a few tablespoons of matcha tea powder for the green color.

I had some dehydrated strawberries I had pulsed with powdered sugar for my pink grapefruit bars a few weeks ago, so I made a glaze with a tablespoon of melted butter and that strawberry powdered sugar.

It wasn’t going to be pink enough, so I then steeped some roselle hibiscus petals and added that as the liquid instead of milk. I did a half dip on all the cookies in the glaze and then finished by sprinkling some of the dehydrated strawberry pieces they didn’t fully pulverize in the food processor. They looked a little like sprinkles. Overall these were super fun and tasty!