What's Cooking: Moussaka, Brat Soup, Kabocha Pancakes & Snickerdoodles & Meribo Salad!

Lots of cooking this week because my new kitchen and all the counter space is never going to get old! Plus now we have an extra fridge, so I made extra large batches of things to last us through the week.

Moussaka with Beef & Pepper Sauce, Potatoes, Eggplant, Zucchini & Bechamel

Moussaka. So many steps. So worth it.

I do  a take on the Greek version of moussaka, though there are many variations through parts of the Mediterranean, the Balkans and the Middle East.

Greek versions include eggplant and potatoes and have a béchamel or custard topping that are key. I was talking to Saadet from Nur’s Kitchen about moussaka this week and she told me that in Turkey, moussaka refers to just a meat-based tomato sauce with eggplant, typically, no béchamel.

For this version, I used Faust Farm’s graffiti eggplant, potatoes and some Two Dog Farms summer squash and zucchini. I don’t always do a squash layer, but it blends in nicely if I have it.

I roasted these on sheet pans separately before assembling. You want the eggplant soft and velvety and the potatoes with some crispy browning.

For the sauce, I had a purple bell pepper, some bullhorn peppers and some habanada peppers to use up, so I sautéed those with onions and garlic in the fat from browning the ground beef.

Then I cooked it all down with some goat bone broth and beefsteak tomatoes from earlier in the summer I had frozen.

The next step is the béchamel with a flour and butter roux, milk, a little yogurt, parmesan cheese, nutmeg, white pepper and sea salt. Once I took it off the heat, I added in four egg yolks for extra oomph and richness.

The final step is layering it all together, first the potatoes, then eggplant, the squash and zucchini. Next goes the meat sauce, then the béchamel. I topped it with crumbled feta cheese and baked for 30 minutes or so.

We have a new farm staffer we’re training and he’s staying at the farm a few nights a week, so with an extra person for dinner, the extra pan I made came in very handy. And for all this work, even if I froze some, you wanted it to go further!

Brat Soup with Smoky Broth, Sweet Potatoes & Greens (Plus Crispy Mushrooms & Black Rice)

This has happened to me before where because of all the greens, I am inspired to make a version of Zuppa Toscana, but then I end up just riffing on the loose concept based on what I had on hand and wanted to use up.

So since we already had potatoes in one meal last week, I decided to use sweet potatoes instead. I am not a huge sweet potato fan, so I really like them in soup and curry where they blend in and don’t come across as potently sweet.

And I still have quite a brats to use up from a butcher mistake batch, so went with those instead of Italian sausage.

For the broth, I had some cooked chicken bones, raw wing tips and meat smoked hocks in the freezer, so I made a simple batch of bone broth with those, bay leaves and peppercorns. The hocks gave a lot of smokiness and saltiness. And I strained it and let it cool and was able to pull off chunks of the hock meat that I mixed into the soup.

I used a bunch of mixed kale, hakurei turnips and most of their tops and some mustard greens, as well. To play on the brat flavors, I seasoned with mustard, nutmeg and more black pepper and finished with milk poured from a new gallon, so there was a decent cream ratio.

We also had two packs of oyster mushrooms to use and with the quantity of soup I made, I knew they’d get lost if I put them in with the other veggies, so I just sautéed them separately and used them as a topping.

And finally, black rice. I love it so much. It’s chewy and nutty, like the best version of brown rice, plus more antioxidants from the rich color. Overall this was a delicious, powerhouse meal prep soup that kept us fueled all week.

Meribo Copycat Salad

Our favorite restaurant in Covington is Meribo. They have incredible wood fired pizzas and they do a happy hour every day that they’re open (Tuesday-Sunday) with half priced pizzas. They even continued this for takeout during COVID. Meribo means a lot to us because we’ve celebrated a few milestones and accomplishments and occasions there, the owner and staff are wonderful and it’s just really good.

A year or so ago, they added a chopped salad to their menu, which in our opinion rivals all of our other favorite appetizers and even the pizzas.

Theirs is curly kale, cherry tomatoes, red onions, castelvetrano olives, pickled banana peppers, gorgonzola, crispy chickpeas and zesty ranch dressing.

While packaged crunchy chickpeas aren’t quite as good as flash fried ones, I had everything else, or similar elements, to recreate this at home.

I used Cicada Calling Farm’s baby kale, good olives (not castelvetrano, but they did the job), small diced heirloom tomatoes and gorgonzola. For the pickled peppers, I ended up slicing some orange bullhorn peppers and mixing with some bell peppers and onions from a recent batch of cucumber kimchi. For the dressing, I used avocado oil mayo, mustard, goat yogurt, garlic powder, green goddess seasoning, nutritional yeast and some brine from the cucumber kimchi.

Then in addition to the crunchy chickpeas, I also added some of Trader Joe’s crispy jalapeño pieces. And at the last minute, after taking the photos, also added some Funny Farm cantaloupe microgreens.

It came out SO good. There’s something special about eating this salad at Meribo since we love it so much, but a version at home really hit the spot.

Roasted Kabocha Squash Oat Pancakes

While I had the oven going for the moussaka, I also roasted a bunch of kabocha squash (and one honey bear acorn squash). I then pureed it, froze a pint of it and planned to use the rest for a pumpkin pasta dish later in the week. But then we ended up having plenty of leftovers from the moussaka and the soup, so I held off on the pasta dish.

And I also had the egg whites leftover from using the egg yolks for béchamel. So as I was anxiously stress cleaning on election night, I prepped overnight oats for pancakes. The base recipe is just mixing two cups of rolled oats with two cups of buttermilk, but I always end up substituting a combination of yogurt and milk.

I also like to add chia and hemp seeds to the oat mix and I went ahead and mixed the kabocha puree in the night before, as well.

In the morning, I added melted coconut oil and vanilla extract and the egg whites and then the dry ingredients are flour (I used rye and whole wheat), brown sugar, baking soda, baking powders, sea salt and pumpkin pie seasonings — allspice, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg.

I forgot to take a picture, but my favorite way to eat the leftovers in the fall is with pecan butter and sliced persimmons. The pancakes themselves are not overly sweet and the persimmons add this sweet jammy element.

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles with White Chocolate

We were supposed to have our elderly neighbors over for a mid afternoon visit to the house on Saturday, but that got delayed since I was troubleshooting the tiny newborn goat situation all day and mucking out the stall to move her and her mom and twin into for the night.

I did manage to prep this cookie dough in order to bake in the afternoon for their visit, but with the goat drama, I didn’t end up baking them until the evening.

Since I still had pureed kabocha squash in the fridge, I looked up a few pumpkin snickerdoodle recipes and slightly adjusted (mainly just using a little maple syrup in place of some of the brown sugar). And then I had white chocolate from a cookie recipe awhile ago that I figured I better use up, so I added some chopped white chocolate to the dough bowls before dipping them in the cinnamon sugar mixture.

Towards the end of baking, I tapped them all down, aiming for a flatter, chewier texture than a fluffy cookie. They came out really good and I would make them again!