Well, it happened again, as it sometimes does. CSA produce was accumulating faster than it was being consumed. Between my travel schedule and some other life things that put the onus on the BF to be Head Chef for a few weeks, we were letting the food go the way of the compost bin.
Disclaimer: This is not a rip on the BF's abilities or initiative. Just imagine him coming home and being in charge of dinner and clean up for two while I busied myself with other things. That's a decent amount of time and responsibility to ask one person to do for another. Yes, he's great.
This week we did something unusually uncharacteristic of us: we planned ahead. In the past, it's been hard to sit down and pre-plan dinner. Beyond the time and organization needed, it takes some of the fun out of cooking and spontaneous menu planning based on what your stomach is telling you it wants at that moment. On the other hand, it can be necessary. This week it worked for us. We took inventory of what we had in our respective fridges and what we could make based on tried and true recipes, what we had already in-house, and what we needed to buy. One other uncharacteristic thing we did was to allow ourselves to go back and repeat recipes. We love trying new dishes and rarely repeat ourselves, even those dishes that we've loved, but it felt safe to do so this week.
So our dinner plates saw the likes of caprese salads, leek and swiss chard tarts, and more. The BF cold-canned some peppers to be consumed during the upcoming football season. Onions were set aside to make a batch of french onion soup this weekend. Feeling good, we looked at what remained: even more leeks, some peppers that escaped the canning adventure, carrots, and potatoes.
At this point we were both proud of ourselves and feeling a bit lazy. The laziness worked out well for one of the last remaining recipes on the list: the Hobo Dinner.
We've done this before, but I've never blogged about it, and feel like now would be a good time. Everyone has a need for a hobo dinner recipe. It's almost impossible to screw up and can be modified to include foodstuff that you need to use. In fact, in the past we've almost always made a vegetarian version, but we had some pasture-raised ground beef that we wanted to use and so made our first carnivore version.
I'm not going to post a formal recipe below. Seriously, this can be improvised so well that any recipe would be more an informal guide than hard and fast rules. Simply take any good roast-able or grill-able veggies- hot or bell peppers, carrots, zucchini, onions, even broccoli- and chop coarsely into chunks. Add potatoes (fingerlings are good because they're small enough to add whole; or grab some small reds or purples and just halve or quarter them), a couple of cloves of garlic, and a few generous pats of butter. Season with some salt, pepper, and any other seasonings that suit your fancy- I enjoy rosemary. Wrap it all up in foil, and throw on your grill on medium to medium-high for about 45 minutes. Unwrap, and voila.
The great thing about this recipe is that, all wrapped up in foil, you can't really screw it up. The steam cooks everything without the risk of drying out, and you can easily do a readiness test by unwrapping it slightly and testing a potato with a fork. If you wish to add meat, the juices will also keep the meat from drying out while seasoning everything else. No grill? Throw it all in the oven on 400.
I don't want to have to resort to a weekly hobo dinner if we get behind on our veggie usage; if we need to use it as a last resort only once or twice more during the summer, I will be happy. But it's an easy and delicious recipe for anyone to have in their back pocket.
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