Peanut Tofu Curry, Korean BBQ Pork Tacos, Brie Tomato Pasta & Chicken Meatballs, Slider Patty Melts, Cheeseburger Pizza & More!

Besides all the farm burgers and ice cream we ate in Vermont, we’ve had some delicious and colorful meals before and after our trip with a rainbow veggie curry, fusion tacos, summery pasta and veggies, patty melts, cheeseburger pizza and birthday carrot cake!

Peanut Curry with Tofu, Eggplant, Sweet Peppers & Basil

A steeping bowl of hot curry isn’t maybe the most summery meal, but it’s what I was craving. And of course, eggplant and colorful sweet peppers go really well with these flavors!

I started by slicing two blocks of tofu and tossing it with yellow curry paste, avocado oil and cornstarch to get a light batter on it.

While it started baking, I sliced some Japanese eggplant and added that to the pan to roast, as well. I really prefer eggplant roasted first before being added to a sauce. I find it becomes more velvety with better roasted flavor than if added to soup and stews raw. It comes out more spongy that way.

Then I sautéed onions in coconut oil, eventually adding garlic and ginger and more yellow curry paste. Then I added in some peanut butter and tamarind paste and then turkey bone broth and a can of coconut cream (I pulled on two cans, but one ended up being enough).

I forgot about some shimofuri and golden oyster mushrooms I wanted to include, so those went in the simmering liquid and then I tasted for salt and sweetness and adjusted with fish sauce and maple syrup. Then I added in a bunch of sliced lunch box peppers and not long after, the baked tofu and eggplant. The peppers don’t need to cook much before they get mushy. I didn’t have any lime, so I finished it with rice vinegar and we ate it with jasmine rice, topped with lemongrass chili oil.

Korean BBQ Pulled Pork Tacos with Kimchi, Peanuts & Spicy Mayo

I had a Boston Butt with a failed vacuum seal to use up and I told Grant that it was maybe the first time I cooked a pork roast that small at just three pounds! Usually with the size pig we bring to the butcher, it’s a battle to get the butchers to cut the roasts small enough and there have been times where despite asking for roasts to be six pounds at the most, we’ve gotten back 10-14 pound roasts!

So anyway, what a concept to make a pork roast and not have to feed lots of people with it, have leftovers for days and days or have to freeze some!

This was a pretty simple prep — I just seared it on all sides in a cast iron pan, then seasoned with a homemade version of Chinese Five Spice, Korean BBQ Sauce and Gochujang.

I cooked it on a trivet in the Instant Pot with some water and rice vinegar for just 60 minutes initially, but it wasn’t quite as ready to fall apart as I’d like, so I set it for another 18 minutes. Even that wasn’t quite falling apart, but it was enough to shred and chop it for tacos.

I seared what we were having that night in a cast iron pan with more of the juices to deglaze it. We had it on flour tortillas with homemade spicy mayo, peanuts, homemade fermented kimchi and Rose Wagon Ranch’s really tasty green onion microgreens.

And I also made a salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions and dressing of tahini, fish sauce, maple syrup, fresh garlic and rice vinegar. The recipe I looked at called for toasted and ground sesame seeds, so I decided to skip that step and just use tahini and it came out really well.

Basil Chicken Meatballs, Gnocchi Sardi with Brie, Tomatoes & Basil, Green Beans & Delicata

When we got back from our trip, we had some brie that desperate needed using up in our fridge and a bunch of cherry tomatoes and green beans from our garden.

So for protein, I made some basil chicken meatballs with ground chicken, homemade breadcrumbs, eggs, parmesan cheese, minced basil and Credo Farm’s Mineral Seasoning and baked those in cast iron pans. I also roasted some delicata squash at the same time.

For the pasta, I sliced the cherry tomatoes, minced garlic and removed the rind from the brie and cubed it. I also had some goat cheese to use up, so that went in the bowl, too. Then I added cooked gnocchi sardi pasta. The hot pasta lightly cooks the tomatoes and garlic and melts the cheese into a silky, luscious sauce.

Along side the pasta, meatballs and squash, I just steamed the green beans and seasoned with onion salt and nutritional yeast. It all went so well together and made for great leftovers for the rest of the week, too. I saved some pasta water to add to it when reheating to loosen up the sauce.

Slider Patty Melts with Okra, Green Beans & Salad

Before our Vermont trip, I needed some weekend meals that didn’t produce that many leftovers — opposite of my usual M.O.

Since we were out of ground beef already by that point, I took home some slider patties. But rather than buns, we went with a double slider patty melt situation instead with a beautiful loaf of sesame bread from Levee Bakery.

I also had some chestnut mushrooms to use up, so I sautéed some red onions first and then added the diced mushrooms, with a little Worcestershire sauce.

I also did some green beans from the garden, some roasted okra and a salad with Homegrown in Folsom’s greens and we layered the patty melts with provolone cheese, the slider patties, the onion and mushroom mixture and fermented bread and butter pickle relish. It was a super tasty combination.

Cheeseburger Pizza with Arugula & Pickles

With another 1.5 slider patties, we did a take on cheeseburger pizza the night before (to use up the last two dough balls from a big batch I made the previous weekend).

I started with a burger sauce for the base with ketchup, mustard, mayo, a little Worcestershire sauce and garlic powder. Then I did mozzarella, cheddar and provolone cheeses and some seasoned raw ground beef.

On top we added diced dill and bread and butter pickles and fresh arugula. It was so good! Will definitely be making again. For the other pizza, we used the last of some pesto and Andouille with goat cheese and olives.

Grant’s Birthday Carrot Cake with Persimmon & Pecans

Grant loves a carrot cake, even though there’s lots of other fruits in August to use up for birthday desserts.

But this year, I managed to somehow have some of River Queen Green’s yellow carrots still in my fridge, waiting to be used for this very purpose.

I’ve also been trying to use up all the pureed persimmon I have in my freezer since the winter, so I searched around for a persimmon carrot cake recipe and didn’t really find what I was looking for exactly.

So I went with this Sally’s Baking Addiction recipe, because she calls for apple sauce! I substituted the 3/4 cup apple sauce for a full cup of persimmon puree. Since I had cooked it down quite a bit before freezing, I knew it was significantly sweeter naturally than apple sauce, so I also adjusted the brown sugar down a bit. I also added some allspice and cardamom to the spices.

Everything else I kept the same, down to cutting parchment paper circles for the bottom of the cake pans. This is absolutely worth it for the cakes releasing easily from the pans. I wish I had done it for Hunter’s birthday cake in May!

For the frosting, I used goat creole cream cheese, butter and even added some persimmon puree to the frosting. And I had used Guidry’s glazed pecan in the cake and toped the frosted cake with them, too. It came out very pretty and super delicious and most importantly, Grant loved it.