Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or so I’ve heard. I hope it’s true as tonight while I was pulling meat from the freezer while balancing 10 eggs and then digging through the pantry, I was struck by what was, in effect, my weekly shopping taking place.
So I decided to mimic Anita’s fabulous weekly market photos (as best I could) to show you what food around here looks like these days. That’s not everything we’ll eat this week, but it’s a good representation. The rest is some odds and ends of cheese in the fridge, veggies from the freezer, homemade vinaigrette for salads with dried cranberries and toasted almonds plus spices, milk, cream, etc. Most of it local and what isn’t, organic from California (our substitute when needed).
From left to right (roughly):
Cube steak, fresh ham roast, knotweed honey from a coworker’s hives (hi Julee!), Pyramid Rollick beer, lettuce and red cabbage from the Ballard market (thanks to Kimberly who picked up for me this week!), homegrown white potatoes, onions/shallots/garlic from local farmstands, homegrown diced tomatoes and tomato sauce, Rockridge Orchards Hard Rock Cider (thanks Maya), homemade pesto, today’s 10 eggs (minus the banty eggs the dogs got), kale (Ballard market), Mt Townsend Seastack cheese, local fresh penne, ground pork and Ranch Gordo Calypso beans.
What’s all that going to become? It’s a moving target around here, I often don’t decide until I’m getting ready to cook, but I think it’s going to be tonight’s baked Penne in marinara sauce (recipe below), chicken fried steaks with mashed potatoes and country gravy, honey cider braised ham with freezer green beans and garlicky bacony black beans with kale.
The cheese will likely become pre-dinner grazing and the eggs I’m not sure - likely breakfast for us or someone else.
Having homemade pesto in the freezer has been wonderful. Each jar is about 6 ounces and we’ve been scooping it out frozen and using it in dishes and on fresh pastas. Next year I’ll have to freeze twice as much. Of course that will require that I not kill my basil as I do every year.
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Baked Penne with Marinara
Fills a deep 9×9″ dish
2 Tbs olive oil
1 lb bulk Italian sausage
1/2 yellow onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbs fresh thyme
1 tsp fresh sage
1 pint diced tomatoes
28 oz tomato sauce
salt and pepper to taste
3 Tbs pesto
1 lb penne, al dente
1 lb mozzarella in 1/2″ cubes
1/4 cup shredded parmesan
Heat the olive oil in a dutch oven or equivalent. Add the sausage and the onion and saute until the sausage is browned and the onions soft. Add the garlic, sage and thyme and saute another minute or so until the aroma makes your mouth water.
Add the diced tomatoes and saute lightly to bring out the flavor. Add the tomato sauce and pesto, then salt and pepper to taste. Simmer while your pasta water comes to a boil and your penne cooks. Drain the penne when it’s al dente.
Add the pasta, half the mozzarella and parmesan to the sauce and stir to combine. Pour into a dish if your pan isn’t oven safe, or just keep in the dutch oven if it is. Spread the remaining cheeses over the top and bake for 25-35 minutes until the edges are bubbling and the cheese is nicely browned.
This dish is best made with dried penne as the fresh doesn’t soak up enough sauce - of course if you like it saucy like I do, the fresh works just fine.
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Pesto is one of the things that I really want to can next summer - I can’t believe that I was overflowing with it and didn’t have the courage to can - your stash must be so good right about this time of year. Do you have to pressure can it, or does it go in a waterbath?
That’s what I was going to ask! More pesto info please. You mentioned that you have pesto in the freezer - so you freeze in glass jars?! I was JUST wondering how that would work as we’ve got an abundance of jars and there are times when I don’t feel like dragging out the pressure cooker. Gorgeous market photo too!
I’m also curious about your pesto!
The pasta looks good enough to eat! I can’t wait to try out your recipe.
We’re supposed to have a hot summer, so hopefully that’ll be conducive to growing basil. I want to freeze as much as possible.
I make and freeze pesto also, but I would love to hear about freezing in glass jars (I currently use plastic bags….eek).
thanks!
ps. I want my shopping trips to look like yours when I grow up
How would we manage without those Rancho Gordo beans! I’ve been making a pot of them every Sunday for weeks and they’re different every time. I can’t get enough of the kale right now either. So good. I love your shopping photo. Thanks.
Mangochild, Melissa, Patrick - All I did was make pesto with my usual recipe, including cheese and olive oil. Then I filled the jars to about 1/2″ from the top and froze them. I freeze a lot of things in glass jars - you just have to make sure you leave enough room for expansion or the jar will crack around whatever you put in it.
Kristi - good luck! I always kill mine through either over or under watering. This will be the year though!
Maureen - See my note above about glass in the freezer. I’m sure you’re trips will look like mine soon enough!
Katrina - I couldn’t possibly manage without them! I’m just now putting together a big order with a friend to maximize the shipping fee. Thank you!
I love your photo — I would peek into everyone’s market bags if they’d let me
the marinara sauce photo is making my stomach growl!
I cannot believe how delicious that penne looks. I’m not usually a pasta person, but sweet holy Italian, baby….
Also, re: freezing glass jars:
Use dual-purpose canning jars for this. In my experience, random glass jars recycled from store-bought pickles and spaghetti sauce will crack/explode regardless of space left. Literature suggests I’m not the only one to have noticed this…but I only found the literature after having exploded a jar or two.
Anita - I love watching other people shop at the markets, it’s so insightful! I so wish there was more of that left, but after two lunches and two dinners it, sadly, is no more.
Laurel - it’s one of my favorite pastas, probably because for me pasta is more about the sauce than the noodles… You’re very right on the jars, you should only use mason jars and leave plenty of space. I have an exploded one in the freezer right now and it was a mason jar, I can’t imagine that cheap jars would hold up well.
I am so glad I have found your website. I have several basil plants that are so beautiful and need to start making some pesto. I have made it in the past but just a small amt. I was trying to find out if I could freeze it but not in ice cube trays. Thank you for the info.