1. Cooked on the grill

2. Made in a Le Creuset

I'm a sucker for pretty much any baked fruit, but apple crisp is on top of my favorite desserts list. And so we were decided. It would probably take a really long time to cook apple crisp entirely on the grill, especially considering we couldn't close the grill lid with the Le Creuset sitting atop it. So we thought it most wise to cook the crisp about three quarters of the way at home in the oven and then finish it off on the grill top at the stadium. 

For the filling:

  6 cups tart apples, cored and chopped into 1 inch chunks*

  1 teaspoon lemon zest

  Juice of 1/2 lemon

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

For the topping:

  1/2 cup all-purpose flour

  1/4 cup granulated sugar

  1/4 cup light brown sugar

  1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

  1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

  1/8 teaspoon salt

  6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces

  1/3 cup rolled oats

  1/3 cup chopped walnuts

1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. In medium-size dutch oven (or a lightly greased baking pan, if you're skipping the grill), toss the apples with lemon juice, zest, and three tablespoons of granulated sugar.

2. Combine topping ingredients (flour, remaining granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, butter, oats and walnuts) in a bowl. Use your fingers to mix together until you have a crumbly mixture and you can't see chunks of butter.

3. Bake uncovered for about 30 minutes, or until bubbly and golden brown on top.

4. When ready to eat, transfer dutch oven to grill top and heat for an additional 10 minutes, or until bubbly and heated through.

5. Best served with vanilla ice cream. Guess who forgot to bring the ice cream? Yeah, I did.

To complement our apple crisp, we cooked up pretty much everything we had in our farm share. Steph made delicious roasted root veggies and peppers: 

Which we heated on the camping stove while grilling some corn:

All right, time for me to get cooking for the last home game of the Revs worst season ever! I'll try to get it posted before next season starts...

I'll admit I was skeptical about the practicality of making lasagna on the grill. In the oven lasagna can take upwards of an hour to cook. Although there is significant prep work in chopping, mixing, and assembling the lasagna for this recipe, the method of cooking is actually fairly straightforward. Essentially, you steam individual-sized lasagnas in packets of foil using a small amount of water. No-boil lasagna noodles, while strange in concept, are really convenient here.

I attribute the success of this lasagna to using very fresh produce (thanks to Farmer Dave's). Because the filling has only a handful of ingredients, flavorful tomatoes and basil truly made the dish.

really, really tasty tomatoes from Farmer Dave's

  1 1-lb ball fresh mozzarella, halved and thinly sliced

  1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

  2 pinches of red pepper flakes (or more, to taste)

  Kosher salt

  3 cloves garlic, grated

  1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

  2 large tomatoes, thinly sliced

  3/4 cup crushed tomatoes

  12 no-boil lasagna noodles

  5 oz baby spinach

  1/3 cup ricotta cheese

  1/3 cup chopped fresh basil

  About 2 cups water, divided

1. At home: Combine mozzarella, parmesan, red pepper flakes, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2/3 of the garlic in a bowl; drizzle with olive oil and toss. In a separate container, season the sliced tomatoes with salt and pepper. In a third bowl, mix the crushed tomatoes, remaining garlic, a pinch of salt, and tablespoon of olive oil in a bowl.  

2. At the game: Preheat grill to medium. Lay out four double-layer sheets of foil. Drizzle each with olive oil, top with one noodle and sprinkle each noodle with a tablespoon of water. Layer some spinach, sliced tomatoes, and mozzarella mixture among the noodles. Repeat with another layer of noodle, water, spinach, tomatoes, and mozzarella mixture. Top each stack off with a third noodle, one tablespoon of water and a drizzle of olive oil. Close the foil and crimp edges tightly to make flat packets.

Goes well with late summer corn!

Asphalt Kitchen model, Joe, enjoying an ear of grilled corn

Yes, this post is two weeks late. No, I do not have an excuse. Other than the fact that while I've NOT been posting, the Revs have, for the most part, NOT been losing. We won't count the rock bottom loss to the Union.

In hindsight: The game vs. Man U was a pain in the ass to get to. I am accustomed to there being no traffic en route to Gillette Stadium In The Middle Of Nowhere. Mostly because the game allegedly drew three times this season's average attendance. In spite of the crappy traffic, I welcome casual and fairweather soccer fans to Gillette, because, hey, if you'll make the trip all the way to Foxborough for a soccer game, you're all right in my book.

We made two dishes for this game, both inspired by the contents of our farm share. And both adapted from one of my go-to cookbooks: Vegetarian Food for Friends by Jane Noraika. I forgot my camera day-of-game, so you're limited to these two sad iPhone photos. But the cookbook has lovely photos of both dishes.

Recipe 1:

infused with mint and balsamic vinegar

Ingredients
  1 lb. yellow and green baby patty pan squashes, cut in half (or whatever squashes you have on hand, really)
  1/3 cup olive oil
  2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  3/4 cup pine nuts lightly toasted in a dry skillet
  1 handful fresh mint leaves, coarsely chopped
  3 zucchini, cut lengthwise into 1/8 inch slices
  sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation
1. Put the patty pans on a preheated grill or stove-top grill pan. Cook on each side about 5 minutes or until tender, turning over when starting to brown.
2. When cooked transfer to a long serving dish. Pour over the oil and vinegar and sprinkle with pine nuts, mint, salt and pepper.
3. Cook the sliced zucchini on the grill for just 1-2 minutes per side. Add to the patty pan mixture and turn to coat. Cover and marinate for about 2 hours in the refrigerator, then serve.

*In case you're wondering, this is what patty pan squashes look like:

Recipe 2:
Lemon, Fennel, and Scallions
on grilled dill polenta
adapted from Jane Noraika, Vegetarian Food for Friends

Ingredients
DILL POLENTA
   3 tablespoons unsalted butter
   1 tablespoon olive oil
   1 1/2 cups polenta
   1 1/2 oz. fresh parmesan cheese, grated
   handful fresh dill, coarsely chopped
   se salt and freshly ground black pepper
MARINATED FENNEL
   2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
   3 tablespoons olive oil
   2 garlic cloves, crushed
   2 bulbs fennel, sliced
   sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
MARINATED SCALLIONS
   8 scallions
   1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
   1 tablespoon olive oil
   sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
TO SERVE
   1 1/2 oz fresh parmesan cheese, grated
   grated zest of 1/2 unwaxed lemon
   sea salt

You'll also need
   A jelly roll pan, 12x10 inches, lightly greased
   A cookie cutter or glass, 3 1/2 inches in diameter

Preparation
1. To make polenta, melt the butter and oil in medium saucepan. Add 5 cups water and bring to a boil. Pour in polenta in a steady stream, beating all the time. Continue to cook according to package direction, until the grainy texture has disappeared. Stir in the parmesan, dill, salt and pepper. Spoon into the prepared jelly roll pan, then let cool until firm
2. To marinate the fennel, put the vinegar, oil, garlic, salt and pepper in a bowl and mix well. Add the fennel and seta aside to develop the flavors.
3. Out scallions, vinegar, oil, salt and pepper in a separate bowl and set aside to marinate.
4. Cut out rounds of polenta with the cookie cutter or glass. Cook on a preheated grill for about 4 minutes each side, until browned.
5. Add the fennel to the grill. Cook for 5-10  minutes until browned on both sides and tender. While the fennel is cooking, add the scallions and cook for 2-3 minutes until lightly blackened.
6. Serve the polenta piled high with fennel and scallions and sprinkle them with parmesan, lemon zest, and sea salt. Pour any remaining marinate juices over the top.

I'd like to point out that both of these dishes were pretty easy and crowd-pleasing. And convenient to the contents of our share!

I know I'm wicked late in getting this post done.  Blame it on the Bruins' Stanley Cup Run.  It pretty much consumed my life for most of the month of June.

But amidst my numerous forays into the North Station area, I did manage to make time for another special sporting event.  This one happened to be in Foxboro, though: A rematch of the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup semifinals between the United States Men's National Team and the reigning world champions from Spain.

This was going to be a big game.  The USMNT has become a decent draw unto itself.  But with Spain the opponent, it was a given that this would be a near-sellout at Gillette.  In fact, one could make the case that this was the biggest game the US ever played in Foxboro, despite the fact that it was a friendly (exhibition) match.  It was bigger than US-Holland in 2002.  The only match that could possibly approach it was US-Mexico in 1997.

Nonetheless, when the USMNT plays, it's often a chance for me to catch up with a number of friends from all over the country.  In fact, it was from traveling all over the US for USMNT matches that I made a good number of these friendships.  And as often is the case, this usually involves a massive tailgate party before the game.

Now, as you already know, I live for tailgating.  The food, the friends the camaraderie - it's one of my favorite things in the world.  I try to bring my 'A' game for most Revolution games, but for matches as big as this one, I really like to outdo myself.

So, when it came to planning out my menu, I had to factor in a few things.  Namely, I 'd be cooking for a lot more people, some who have tried my cuisine before and some who have never savored the fruits of my culinary labor.  In addition, while I'd have a significantly longer tailgate than a usual Revolution match, I'd want to bounce around and socialize a lot more as well.  So this meant something that was quick cooking and easy to assemble.  Fortunately, I didn't have to think too hard about what to make, the idea popped into my head right away: Sliders.

The mini-burger craze is alive and well.  And why not?  Restaurants all over are using sliders as a means of offering many different tastes in small bites.  You can have the taste of a burger without making the commitment to having to eat a third of a pound of the the same thing.

Because I like to mix things up and offer a variety of dishes whenever I cook, I chose to make four different types using two different types of meat: ground beef and ground turkey.  I have a bunch of friends who don't do the red meat thing anyways, so the turkey would allow them to be included as well.

I riffled through a bunch of my cookbooks and searched through the Epicurious website and finally came up with my recipes:

1/4 red wine vinegar
3 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1/2 tsp ground cayenne pepper

12 Snowflake or other small dinner rolls, sliced in half

Chimmichurri is a staple of South American cuisine. Similar to Italian pesto, but not as thick (there's no cheese to act as a binder), this sauce packs an incredible herbal punch with a big garlic kick.  The oil adds body while the vinegar and lemon juice cuts through the richness.  Fresh parsley is an absolute must here and don't skimp on the olive oil either.  The original recipe calls for sherry vinegar, but I used a combination of red wine and champagne vinegars here.  Extra sauce can be refrigerated and works great on a variety of grilled meats.

Also, make sure to use ground beef that is no more than 80-85% lean, usually ground chuck.  Using anything leaner (90%+) will result in dry burgers with no taste.  The fat content is essential here.

1 lb peeled garlic cloves

1 tbsp Chicago or Montreal steak seasoning

1/2 cup olive oil

kosher salt

pepper

Season the beef with the steak seasoning and form into 12 balls of equal size.  Flatten the balls into patties and grill over medium heat 3-4 minutes a side until pink in the middle.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375° F and heat a small oven-safe saucepan or skillet over medium heat and add the olive oil.  Once the oil comes to temperature and begins to shimmer, add the garlic and season with salt and pepper. When the garlic starts to turn golden, place the skillet in the over and roast for 30 minutes until the garlic is nicely browned.

Remove from the oven and let cool.  Once cooled, removed the garlic and mash into a paste, using the remaining oil as necessary to make a smooth mixture.

To serve, place a burger on on piece of ciabatta.  Top with a 1/2 tbsp of the blue cheese and a spoonful of the confit.  Place the other half of the the ciabatta on top and enjoy

Notes:
The roasted garlic confit sounds complicated to make, but it is anything but.  The key is to buy a 16 oz container of peeled garlic, found in the produce section of most supermarkets.  Its a huge time saver.  The sweetness of the garlic combined with the salty tanginess of the blue cheese works wonderfully with the richness of the ground beef.

Arrange the potato slices on a microwave safe plate, brush with vegetable oil and season with salt and pepper. Microwave on high for 4 minutes, flipping the slices over halfway through. The slices should be tender to the touch. If they are not tender, microwave longer, 10 seconds at a time, until done.  Set aside to cool.

On to the food: