Seasonal overabundance converted, take II

     Absurd though it might seem, I subscribe to a CSA.  I know, I know, what would possess a person who has a vegetable garden to get a weekly box of veggies?  There are several reasons.
     For one, I tend to be a jack rabbit gardener, not a turtle.  I have a fantastic spring garden, but inevitably, I tend to fizzle mid-summer.  This coincides with my yearly vacation.  Upon return, the garden seems to have gotten away from me and I just lose my momentum... I do try valiantly to regain it, but have mixed results.  I get a pile of tomatoes and squash, but the rest is questionable.
So, if more lettuce, cucumbers or corn are desired, it usually needs to come from somewhere else.
     Also, I find that I grow the same items every year, and my CSA does a nice job of pushing my dietary and culinary envelope:  romano beans, spaghetti squash, radicchio, that sort of thing.  OK, the radicchio has never caught on with me, but the others do.
     I also like being part of a larger, local process:  CSAs do a fine job of keeping food local, organic and seasonal.   The benefits are well detailed elsewhere, I am just glad to take part.  We can call it walking the talk.
     Sure, I could go to the farmer's market ( I do, actually), I could pick other things to grow, I could time my vacations for January.  The fact is that I don't.  So this is my way of compensating.
     At the end of the season, I get a box of storage vegetables:  potatoes and winter squash, celeriac and rutabagas.  This year, I also got beets and leeks.  A lot of leeks.
     It got me thinking of how to use them up more quickly, as they are a bit of a stretch to call a storage vegetable.  This coincided with a cookbook I have recently become enamored with:   From The Larder by Nigel Slater.  He is a genius.  This book is a series of entries arranged in a diary form over the course of a year, wherein he talks about what he is eating/cooking that day.  It makes for fantastic reading and inspiration.
     He, too, had a plethora of leeks.  While he solved his problem somewhat differently, he also mentioned some other options, which inspired me to come up with this way.
     Bacon is cut small, browned and removed from the pan.  Leeks are sliced thinly, added to the residual fat, and softened.  They are heaped on a piece of puff pastry with a bit of cream and baked.  That is basically it.  The result is a faintly sweet and salty item with shatteringly delicate borders.  We paired it with baked salmon for an easy yet fancy dinner.  Even Bryce said the tart was 'not bad' which is a complement for a person who tends to shy away from green vegetable matter.

Bacon and Leek Tart

serves 2-4, depending on what else is served

3 slices bacon, sliced 

4 leeks, white and green parts, cleaned and sliced 1/4" thick

Salt and pepper to taste

1-2T cream

1/2 lb puff pastry

Brown the bacon over medium heat.  Remove the bacon from the pan, leave the fat.  Gently sauté the leeks in the bacon fat over medium heat until softened, approx 5 min.  Salt and pepper to taste.  

Meanwhile flatten out the puff pastry sheet and score it  approx 1/2-3/4" from the edge all the way around.  Avoid going all the way through the pastry.  

Heap the leeks within the scored borders, and sprinkle the bacon on top.  Fold the scored edges over.  Pour the cream over the top.  

Bake in a preheated 450F oven x 20-22 minutes, until the edges are puffed and golden brown.  

Remove and cool slightly, cut into desired sizes:  

This could serve as an accompanying dish, or appetizer.  

It could lend itself to variations:  addition of fresh thyme, diced roasted squash, skip the bacon, gruyere instead of cream, and on and on.  

A Cake for Fall

     I have my friend Laura to thank for this.  She turned me on to Food 52.   I am still not entirely sure  how to describe this site, but here is a ham handed attempt.  It's a food site, with accumulated recipes from what I gather is other folks' blogs and a few other sources.  It also sells foo-foo products that are groovy to look at but rather pricey.  So I ignore that part.  But the aggregator concept is cool.  So then there are a series of say, summer tomato salad recipes from a variety of places.  Or 10 new things to do with chicken.  That sort of thing.
     Somehow, probably when I 'joined' the site, it started to send me daily emails with this stuff.  I am sure I am missing 10 other things that this site is capable of, but that just gives another reason to check it out.
     The recipe that I made today comes from there.  It neatly coincides with the accumulation of too many squashes in my garage and the realization that I had some left over puree in the freezer from last winter as well.
      It also coincides with a general urge to purge.  I would desperately love to commence with a kitchen remodel, but can't yet.   The reasons why are basically out of my control.  So, in an effort to DO something that IS in my control, I have been slowly purging out junk from the garage to eventually make way for the stored items from the kitchen.  Very satisfying.  It's amazing how we amass stuff, and basically don't need much of it.
     Also, my beef group has ordered another beef, and I have a little over a month to finish the residual beef in the freezer.  So the above-mentioned urge thus carries over to the freezer, which is also located in the garage.
     All of this is a long-winded way of saying I had the pureed squash, and now I have a recipe.  It is a simple pumpkin spice cake, one layer.  It is topped with a cream cheese frosting and then garnished with candied pumpkin seeds.  Perfect for fall.  The only thing that I am not overjoyed with is the pumpkin seeds.  What to do?  The lighter green ones that are more attractive for this sort of thing are, according to PCC, sourced from China.  The darker green ones are sourced from Oregon.  So darker green pepitas it is. They all taste the same, but somehow, I don't think my cake is a beautiful as the one on the website....Ah well.  Gotta walk the talk.

     I haven't monkeyed with the recipe at all, and thus won't bother to print it here.  BUT you can find it at Food52.....with this link:

Addendum:  My neighbor Robb complained loud and long that the following link did not work for him.  I copied and pasted it into my server and it worked JUST FINE ROBB.

 http://food52.com/blog/11384-pumpkin-cake-and-proud-of-it?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Editorial%20AND%20Provisions&utm_campaign=10012014_Edit%2BProv_Midweek

However, if you too experience technical difficulties, then try the following:
1.  This link:  http://food52.com/recipes/search?q=pumpkin+cake
2.  Or, failing that, look up food52, and type in Pumpkin Cake in their search line.

I did all three, and all three worked for me.