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Two things inspired this dessert:
- the fragrant baskets of Ontario freestone peaches at the grocery store
and
- the delectable lemon sour cream ice cream I had at Oliver & Bocacini Cafe Grill on Monday night
I have to be honest: I originally planned to make a pie. I always originally plan to make a pie. However, pie-making requires actually planning ahead: making the dough, letting it chill for at least an hour, and then having the counter space to roll it out. This is not always realistic, and since I still find pie dough making somewhat stressful, I tend to avoid it, despite my best intentions.
Instead, I had planned to do something halfway in-between; a cobbler with a pie-like crust, from The All-American Dessert Book
. Fate, however, had other plans. I cut my thumb pretty badly while slicing the slippery peeled peaches. Now minus a hand, rolling out dough of any kind was out of the question. So I turned to Epicurious for some quick guidance.
I found one recipe that approximated what I wanted to do, and then changed it for my own purposes. And what is a warm fruit dessert without ice cream? Before the knife-slicing incident, I had managed to put together the Blueberry Sour Cream ice cream from Baking: From My Home to Yours
, by Dorie Greenspan. P thinks this may be the best ice cream I've made yet - and it was so easy. No custard required; only a short cooking of the blueberries with sugar and lemon on the stovetop, and blending with the sour cream and heavy cream in a blender. The ease calls for experimenting with other flavors!
Peach & Blueberry Cobbler
for the fruit mixture:
5 - 6 cups of sliced, peeled peaches
1 cup of blueberries
2 tbsp cornstarch
juice from half a lemon
1 cup sugar
for the cobbler:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) of butter, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup of heavy cream (any milk will do, but the heavy cream is nice)
1 tbsp sugar
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Mix the ingredients for the cobbler in a large bowl. Pour into a 2.5 quart oven-safe dish, or a baking dish that will comfortably fit the fruit. Bake fruit mixture for 10 - 15 minutes, or until just bubbling. It is a good idea to put a cookie sheet on a rack below the fruit, so that if there is overflow the oven stays clean.
While the fruit is baking, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Using your hand or a pastry cutter, incorporate the butter into the flour until resembling a coarse meal. Add the heavy cream until it forms a dough; you may not need all of it.
When the fruit is bubbling, distribute the dough across the top of the cobbler. Sprinkle the sugar over the top of the cobbler. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the top is browned. Serve warm.
I really like eggplant, but for some reason cooking it has a history of being touch-and-go for me. It got to the point in grad school that we'd always buy Japanese eggplants, because the flavor of the typical globe eggplants would be so unreliable when I cooked them. That's the glorious thing about getting these boxes of veggies, though - if there's a globe eggplant in the box, well, we have to do something with it.
Again I turned t
o Mark Bittman for inspiration. (For those thinking this is monotonous, you seriously should check out this cookbook. I'm in love - and a non-baking cookbook rarely holds my attention this long.) He suggested a broiled eggplant with miso-walnut vinaigrette. Since we don't have a broiler-safe pan, though, I was nervous about using my Pyrex pans - which clearly say "no broiler" on them. Instead, I cranked up the heat in the oven to 500 degrees, and followed Mr. Bittman's instructions.
Basically, here's what I did:
1) Cut an eggplant in half lengthwise. Rub it with vegetable oil and salt.
2) Roast at 500 degrees (or if you can, broil), cut side up, until browned on top.
3) While it's in the oven, whisk together some miso paste, soy sauce, and rice vinegar, using proportions to taste. Add in some chopped walnuts.
4) When the eggplant is done, make cut into it a bit (sort of like a baked potato), and apply the vinaigrette.
So easy, and so good. The eggplant was perfect - a definite for the repeat list.
On the side (or was the eggplant the side?): roasted lamb Merguez sausages with red onions, and some boiled sliced new potatoes mixed in. Another Bittman suggestion, substituting roasting for broiling. Seriously, check this cookbook out.
I forgot to post about what we got this week! Here's the list:
- one watermelon
- a red pepper and a green pepper
- several tomatoes (including a green stripey one)
- four ears of corn
- a bunch of radishes
- celery
- Romanesco cauliflower
- a red onion
My challenge this week: celery. Ants on a log is always good, but it's hard to eat a whole head of celery worth of it. I usually only use celery in soups, or to make chicken broth (or a few stalks tossed into recipes here and there). Any creative suggestions for ways to use celery? I've found some salad recipes on Epicurious so far, but haven't committed to one yet...
I'm embarrassed to admit that we didn't use the radishes we got last week - not for lack of interest, but they just got soft before I had a chance to use them. Happily, though, the little cucumbers from last week lasted longer, and were still fit to use last night.
My plan: a sweet radish and cucumber salad. On Epicurious, I came across a few uses for radishes and cucumbers that brined the vegetables. For dinner, I made a quick brine using cider vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper, and let it soak for 10 minutes. The recipe is found here. I think this use of radishes is the best yet - and it was excellent a day later for lunch. I plan to experiment a bit with the flavors of the brine, and possibly the vegetables the radishes are paired with. The salad would probably be just as delicious without any other vegetable at all!
On the side with the radish and cucumber salad: some pan-grilled steak, corn on the cob, and leftover potato salad from last week.
In addition to the cornbread cookbook (The Cornbread Gospels
) I picked up on the visit to Connecticut, we also purchased a cookbook called Asian
from the bargain table. Usually bargain table cookbooks are there for a reason, but this one stood out for the selection of Asian dishes we'd been meaning to try at home (like our favorites from the Banana Leaf, the best Malaysian restaurant in Vancouver.) We took a trip to T&T this weekend to pick up a few things we were missing, and dove into the book.
P - since he was the one who found the book - had the honor of choosing the first recipe we made. He selected Singapore noodles. When P and I started ordering Chinese food together, he introduced me to the wonderful world of this noodle dish. Chinese BBQ pork, shrimp, and tasty curry-flavored noodles. In the right hands, this is delicious; just spicy enough, with large pieces of pork and shrimp and lots of flavor. In the case of more disappointing Chinese delivery, it's greasy and sort of tasteless, with tiny bits of the added meats.
The result? Delicious. We're making our not-so-great Chinese delivery place obsolete. (Also a nice way to use the green beans from last week's box!)
Again inspired by Mark Bittman, I used a tomato and the peppers from the CSA box and the Japanese eggplant from our balcony garden in a quick fish stew. I call it a stew because of the accumulation of pan juices when it's cooking; it's a bit too wet to be called something else (a saute? A stir-fry? Definitely not.)
Since moving to Ontario, we've eaten a lot less fish than we did while in Vancouver. Out there, it was easy: wild salmon was relatively cheap and always available. Here, it's not so clear-cut. The wild salmon is exorbitantly expensive, and doesn't always look so fresh. Not to mention that there are all sorts of complicated rules for what fish you should buy, what you shouldn't buy, what is bad for the environment, what has too much mercury...I just can't keep up. To be completely "right" all the time would require carrying a list of the "good" and "bad" fishes around in your wallet - a list that changes all the time - and I already have enough jammed in there. Instead, I have 3 general rules for buying fish:
1) It is preferably on sale. I'm cheap, and I rationalize this by thinking they have enough to put on sale, so it's probably fresh and "in season," whatever that is in fish-world. This may be entirely wrong, but the "I'm cheap" part of the reason wins out.
2) It looks fresh. The people behind the fish counter at my local Loblaws are not the types who love letting you smell the fish, so I go on sight. Does it look mushy? Does it look like its been unfrozen more than once? If either are true, I walk on by.
3) It's wild. Yes, I realize farmed fish is sometimes (often?) on the "good" fish list. But ever since my friend M (who did his dissertation work on salmon and has his PhD in zoology) said that farmed salmon don't really look like normal salmon when they're alive, I prefer to buy wild fish.
Now, these rules probably violate all sorts of proper fish shopping behavior. I accept that; I don't paint myself as someone who is 100% correct in how to buy fish or produce, or anything, for that matter. These are just my quick-and-dirty rules, and they seem to work well for me: we haven't bought bad fish yet. (Except for some mussels...but that's a different story. My rules probably do not apply to shellfish.)
Fish and summer vegetable stew
serves 2 generously (with leftovers)
1 tbsp olive oil
2 large shallots
3 - 4 small peppers, in various colors
1/2 lb firm white fish1 Japanese eggplant, sliced into 1/2 inch slices
1 large tomato, chopped
juice from half a lemon
1 - 2 tbsp chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste
Heat olive oil in large saute pan. Cook shallots and peppers on medium until slightly softened. Meanwhile, dry the fish, sprinkle salt and pepper on each side. Once softened, push the vegetables to the side of the pan and add fish. Sear slightly on each side. Add chopped tomato and eggplant; mix everything together. The fish will start to fall apart; this is all right. Cover and cook until the tomatoes and eggplant are soft and the fish is cooked through, 3 - 4 minutes. (If the pan you're using does not have a cover, use a piece of tin foil.) Remove cover and add lemon juice and parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with good bread to sop up the juices.
Notes: This is easily multiplied by adding more fish and/or vegetables - watch the size of the pan when adding volume. Nearly any summer vegetable will do, but adding tomatoes is important because of the moisture they release and the texture they add to the dish.
We started the week out with 6 ears of corn. I really like corn - but have never really been in a position to use this much all at once. The last few weeks I've simply frozen the bounty, but this week was inspired to use all of it.
Rather than just eat in on the cob - which isn't so good if the corn sits in the refrigerator for days and days - I cooked all 6 ears at the same time when we ate corn earlier in the week, and cut them off the cob for last night's dinner. Again, I turned to Mark Bittman for ideas. He has a recipe for a warm corn and ham salad that sounded tasty, especially since P and I found a really good ham in the deli section of the local Loblaw's. This ham tastes like what you'd make at home - but without having to buy a whole ham.
For those who envision a mayonnaise-laden salad when hearing "ham salad," this is far from that. It's simply some onion and ham sauteed in a pan until browned (I added a jalapeno from the balcony garden), with some corn and frozen soy beans added to heat through. The dish is then finished with a bit of wine vinegar, parsley, and salt and pepper. Bittman originally called for lima beans, but since neither P nor I like them, we used soy beans; the only white wine vinegar I had on hand was champagne vinegar, which worked fine. This was a great way to use the corn and onion from the box, as well as one more jalapeno from the garden. It was equally delicious for lunch today.
As an accompaniment, P made onion rings with our new deep fryer. Though his recipe is still being perfected, I think freshly-made onion rings are probably more delicious than most you'll get in a restaurant - there's that fresh-from-the-fryer taste that is hard to get when moving the onions from the kitchen out to a restaurant table.
Tonight's dinner was another go at making the vegetables more interesting - and in this case, having no meat as a main or side. The cabbage we got in the box a couple of weeks ago was still good, as were the potatoes from the week before, so I combed through my new favorite cookbook (Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express: 404 inspired seasonal dishes you can make in 20 minutes or less
) for some interesting recipes.
Two recipes appealed to me, though they fell in the "wrong" seasons. Warm Cabbage Salad with Bacon was designated a winter recipe; Lebanese Potato Salad was apparently meant for the spring. Obviously, though, these are just suggestions - the primary vegetable players in both recipes are clearly in season now.
The Lebanese Potato Salad was delicious - I'm not sure what made it Lebanese, but it was still tasty. While Bittman called for sprinkling some coriander seeds in it, I got it mixed up with another recipe and threw in some mustard seeds instead. Still tasty, though the coriander might have been what made it Lebanese...in any case, I'd make it again.
As for the cabbage, I'm curious how it tastes cold. Warm, it was a bit like a sauerkraut with a bit of bacon. P thought it definitely needed more bacon to make even adding it worthwhile; it was hard to even notice it within the giant pile of cabbage and onion. Maybe with sausages on a cold winter night this would be a better fit - otherwise, I don't think this will reappear on the menu any time soon. When it's cold it might make a good slaw or sauerkraut substitute - we'll see.
With the salads, we had some fresh steamed corn, which was delicious. What was arguably the most successful part of the meal, though, was the cornbread I made. Yes, we had cornbread last week. Yes, I love cornbread, and I would eat it every day. P, however, does not. He thinks cornbread is just okay, and will usually only politely eat a bit of it. This cornbread, though, has been declared The Best Cornbread Ever.
Embarrassingly, the actual cornbread part of it comes from a mix. It is the best cornbread mix out there (Jiffy - I think only available in the U.S.), but still, it's a mix. P has eaten cornbread made from this mix on several occasions, though, so it's what's added that made the difference. The cornbread I made last week was a bit of inspiration.
The Best Cornbread Ever or
Almost-All-Homemade Jalapeno Cornbread
1 box Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup creamed corn
2 large jalapenos, diced
1 green onion, sliced thinly
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 9 inch pan.
Dump the dry mix into a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients. Mix until just combined. Pour into pan. Bake for 18 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
I used a 9 x 9 inch pan; the directions on the box call for an 8 x 8 inch pan. Just watch when it's done, and the size change won't make any difference. Obviously, the smaller the pan, the thicker the cornbread. If you're using something other than Jiffy, my additions to the recipe on the box were the creamed corn, the jalapenos, and the green onion; otherwise, just follow the directions on the box.
Here's what was in this week's box:
- a butternut squash
- a head of garlic
- green beans
- an eggplant
- sweet peppers (orange and purple)
- radishes
- three tomatoes
- six ears of corn
- two cucumbers
- several carrots
So many possibilities! I also have 4 more jalapenos and one small Japanese eggplant from my balcony garden, so I'll be integrating those in this week, as well. Tomorrow's dinner will focus on using some of the things from previous weeks - potatoes and cabbage - but I think the corn has to make an appearance, as well, so we eat it at its best. An update will appear tomorrow...
Tonight, with P home, I made two more veggie-centric recipes, with the goal of keeping the meat as a side dish. I turned to Mark Bittman's newest cookbook, Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express: 404 inspired seasonal dishes you can make in 20 minutes or less. This cookbook is fantastic for quick and creative recipes that use seasonal veggies - perfect for trying to use lots of vegetables from the CSA box.
Tonight's dinner?
- A raw beet salad, which I added a couple of carrots to from an earlier week. I pulsed the beets and carrots in the food processor with a large shallot, and tossed with parsley from the balcony garden, olive oil, sherry vinegar, large grain Dijon mustard, and salt and pepper.
- Wax beans and tomatoes sauteed with bacon and onion. After cooking the onion and bacon until the bacon was crisp and the onion was soft, I sauteed the beans until they were crisp-tender, then cooked the tomatoes in the mix until they wilted a bit.
- Barbecue chicken. Just some roasted chicken legs with some store-bought barbecue sauce painted on.
The vegetables were definitely the star - and with some bread, it would have been enough for dinner without the chicken. So far, trying to put vegetables center-stage is a success!
I got what I thought was a cantaloupe - but I think is actually an Ontario muskmelon - in the CSA box this week. I'm not really a fan of orange melon; it's only recently that I'll even eat honeydew when it comes in a fruit salad. (Now watermelon - that I can get behind.) So rather than just eat it raw, I decided to make melon sorbet. I'll eat anything in ice cream form.
While I had high hopes for a dinner full of vegetables, the heat of the summer just took away my appetite. So I went for a walk and did some errands. When I got back, I was too hot and too tired to cook - but that sorbet waited for me in the freezer. Does it really count as dessert for dinner when it's mostly fruit?
Long story short, the melon sorbet was delicious. Smooth, cold, and sweet, with just enough melon flavor. Absent was that overly-super ripe-almost squash-like taste that comes too often with cantaloupe (muskmelon?). The vodka in the recipe kept the sorbet from becoming rock-hard in the freezer; I could scoop it easily from the container. And with a little bit of vanilla ice cream on the side, it became just a little bit like a melon creamsicle. Since I ate about a third of the recipe for dinner, I think I might be a little tipsy now - I'm a cheap drunk. I forgive myself by remembering that it was also the equivalent of eating a third of a melon...never mind the sugar.
I used Alton Brown's recipe for melon sorbet, and here's one from Anna Olson (thank you, L) for days when you're have a bit more time to invest in making it. Since the melon I used was slightly smaller than the weight called for in Alton's recipe, I used only a cup of sugar, but the same amount of lemon juice and vodka. Yum. Next time I'll try to use a bit less sugar, too - the melon was naturally sweet enough to carry the sorbet on its own.
My friend L's dad drove us into work on Monday. On the way, we talked about how using the CSA share was going. I said that it was hard to figure out ways to use all of the vegetables - clearly, P and I don't normally eat this much of them. L and her dad pointed out that in North American culture, there isn't much honoring of the vegetable on its own. Rather, it's a side dish, and if the vegetable is served plain, it's usually the least delicious thing on the plate. Greek food, however, showcases the vegetables. Possibly due to the frequent fast days required in the Greek Orthodox calendar, the Greeks have found delicious ways to make meals without meat. What it ultimately means is that they clearly know what to do with a vegetable - to make it the meal instead of the sad side portion of the meal.
I decided to take some inspiration from this and put the vegetables on center stage this week. As with other times P is away, I'm more tolerant of failure in the kitchen than when I'm feeding someone other than me. To start, tonight's dinner was a Greek (sort of) salad with toasted pita - perfect for a summer evening when it's really too hot to do any serious cooking. This first try was definitely not a failure!
Unfortunately, there's no photo - my resident photographer is away, and I was too hungry to bother.
Greek (sort of) salad
serves 1 as dinner; 2 for a substantive side dish
1 tomato
1/2 green pepper
1/2 cucumber
1/3 cup Kalamata olives
1/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1/2 tsp fresh oregano leaves
2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
Cut up the tomato, pepper, and cucumber into bite-sized pieces. Mix in bowl with the other ingredients. Serve with toasted pita.
This week's box contained...
- 1 cantaloupe
- 6 ears of corn
- 1 green pepper
- red and white new potatoes
- an onion
- wax beans
- 3 tomatoes
Tonight I'll quickly cook the corn and freeze it, and add it to the corn from last week. There's just no way I can eat all of this before it isn't so good to eat - P is away this week, so it's just me and all these veggies...
I love, love, love cornbread - so when I saw the The Cornbread Gospels by Crescent Dragonwagon, I had to buy it. A whole cookbook full of over 200 cornbread recipes? How could I resist?
Combine a new cornbread cookbook and a bunch of fresh jalapenos from our balcony garden, and the results are obvious: jalapeno cornbread. The recipe I used was Jane's Texas-via-Vermont Mexican Cornbread. And while I'd be happy just eating cornbread for an entire meal, we also made Tex-Mex Chicken with Chilis and Cheese, from the June/July 2009 issue of Fine Cooking. Both were delicious - and though there were four jalapenos between the two, neither were too spicy.
If you're in the market for a cooking magazine and can only have one, Fine Cooking should be it. There's always a set of quick weeknight recipes in the back that - unlike what Michael Pollen decries in his recent New York Times Magazine article - are actual cooking. The rest of the magazine has gorgeous photography and interesting recipes, and usually has one weekend project and a general recipe that can be modified many different ways (like ice cream flavors, or lasagna). (Now, if you can have two cooking magazines, I'd recommend Cook's Illustrated.)
There are still at least two more jalapenos on the plant, so I'll have to think about what to do with those. In the meantime, I'm having some cornbread for dessert.
When we were in Connecticut, we stopped at Trader Joe's, which has to be one of my favorite food stores. (Three things I love that are missing from Canada: Trader Joe's, Target, and widely available unsweetened iced tea.) We picked up two of their Simmer Sauces - basically cheater sauces for weeknights: one for chicken masala, and one for chicken korma. They were still sitting on the counter, waiting to be put away, when I opened up this week's box of veggies - so Indian cuisine was already on my mind.
So, rather than just use one of the sauces, I thought "why not try to make aloo gobi?" Aloo gobi is one of my favorite dishes to order when out at an Indian restaurant - it's cauliflower, potatoes, and delicious Indian spices. (I'm sure I'm not giving it a thorough enough description. Honestly, I'm no expert in Indian food beyond knowing what I like to eat - so here's a link to a description of aloo gobi on Wikipedia.)
My first search for recipes turned up this one, which looked easy enough. However, I had no garam masala in the apartment. Rather than just give up, though, I remembered that a) garam masala is a spice mix, and b) I have quite a few whole spices in my spice cabinet that I've purchased for such a purpose. So I found a recipe for garam masala here. Is it the most authentic? I have no idea; I'm sure every Indian cook has their own blend that they prefer. All I know is that the apartment smelled like an Indian restaurant while the spices were toasting, and it smelled good.
The recipe turned out well, I think; P approved. It was spicier than when I've ordered out, but good with the rice and the store-bought naan (no, I didn't make my own naan last night, too - that's coming later, probably on a weekend night). I did add the garam masala before it was finished cooking; sprinkling ground spices on top of the vegetables didn't seem that appealing to me, but I leave whether that was correct or not to the experts. I now have a ton of garam masala left over, so expect more experimentation with Indian foods over the next few months...
Unfortunately, Beer and Butter Tarts, the blog that I had started to write for, is not continuing - its creators just had too much to do between that and TasteTO, my favorite blog about food in Toronto. Happily, I'll be writing for TasteTO come September. Here's a review I wrote for Beer and Butter Tarts before it was decided it would not continue. I'll be posting links here to anything I submit to TasteTO.
Bobby Flay's Burgers, Fries, and Shakes
by Bobby Flay with Stephanie Banyan & Sally Jackson
Clarkson Potter, Copyright 2009, 159 pages, list price: $30.00I don't know many people who don't enjoy a good burger, fries, and a milkshake. Why else would vegetarians endure those disgusting hockey pucks that so often pass as burgers? Bobby Flay's newest cookbook, Bobby Flay's Burgers, Fries & Shakes, appeals to that part of all of us who are tired of thinking about local, organic, healthy cooking, and just want a big plate of delicious fat, salt, and sugar for a meal. So long as it's done right, what's the harm?
This book delivers on the promise of many delicious sounding (and looking) recipes for all different types of burgers, fries, and milkshakes. The burger recipes, with the exception of the fish burgers, are all built on the same base: a meat-only burger with a soft bun of your choice. The toppings are where the excitement is: there are 28 beef (or turkey) burger recipes and 4 fish burger recipes to try. All have appealing taste combinations that are based principally on American regional cuisine (e.g. the Buffalo burger, inspired by Buffalo wings), though some venture into territory more international, but not so new (e.g. a Greek burger).
The advantages to this book are that it emphasizes simplicity and quality of ingredients, and suggests burger combinations that one might not have considered - it definitely moves beyond the concoctions you can create at Harvey's. The milkshake flavors, and how to create them from various ingredients, are inspired. (The lemon meringue milkshake? Yum!). There is also a section that talks about creating your own sauces and spice mixes - like chipotle ketchup and horseradish mustard mayonnaise - that would improve the offerings at any barbecue. Watch out for the heat level in his recipes, though - even my husband cut back on the quantity of chipotles in the ketchup, and he loves anything spicy.
There are a few other instances where this cookbook leaves a bit to be desired. For those who are unskilled or have no experience with deep-frying, this book will not tell you how to do it. Each recipe for fries and onion rings that calls for the food to be deep-fried includes a quantity of oil (usually one quart, or 0.95 liters), the temperature to bring it to, and instructions on how long to leave it in the oil for. These seemed to be sufficient instructions to me...until I used a pot where a quart of oil ends up being only an inch deep, so I topped it up with another quart. When I put the sweet potatoes in the heated oil, it boiled over all over the stovetop. A word to the wise: for those trying to do deep-frying on a stovetop for the first time, don't do it on a gas stove. (Thankfully, my failed experience was on was an induction cooktop, which made for relatively easy cleanup and an intact kitchen).
No matter what your deep-frying skill is, though, the quantity of oil suggested was too small for stovetop cooking - and was definitely too small for the deep fryer we bought the next day, which happened to be one that Flay endorsed in the book. Another quantity that seemed too small was the amount of liquid in the milkshakes: most of the recipes call for a mere 1/4 cup of milk to almost two cups of ice cream. Not only does this not actually produce milkshakes of the size promised (one 16-ounce milkshake) - it is a very, very thick shake. Which could be nice - but with the outcome as thick as it was, I wondered whether it would just be easier to have a bowl of ice cream with the toppings that went into the shake, and save cleaning the blender.
This cookbook is a cute little read, with some good ideas - but there isn't a whole lot of substance behind the beautiful photography and the celebrity chef name. If you're a big burger fan, or have been meaning to try different fry and onion ring recipes and some interesting spice blends and sauces, this might be worth a buy. Otherwise, I'd just flip through this at the bookstore or the library for some ideas for your next barbecue.
This week's box is full of things I'm very excited to use:
- 7 ears of corn
- 3 tomatoes
- a head of cauliflower
- a head of lettuce
- a cucumber
- 2 carrots
I'm really looking forward to the corn and tomatoes; I think those are the vegetables that evoke summer to me the most. Even if the weather isn't super summery, the food in my kitchen can be!
Okay, harvest might be too strong a word - but here is the first produce from our balcony garden! It's very exciting; I've progressed from someone who killed all of her houseplants to someone who can help plants produce fruit! (I think the first step was learning that plants and gardens don't just water themselves, as they seemed to when I lived at home.)
When we came back from Connecticut, the jalapenos had grown large enough to pick, one of the Japanese eggplants had grown, and small, green tomatoes were present on both of our tomato plants. Now I just have to think of what to do with all of these - these four are only the start of what's still growing on the plant. I'll probably end up drying some of them, and our food will be spicier over the next couple of weeks! P definitely won't mind that.
I just got back from a trip to Connecticut to visit my family. It was a great visit - P and I got to see all of the regular cast of characters in the Nutmeg State. And in terms of culinary excitement? P got to experience classic Rhode Island dining for the very first time.
You see, my mom grew up in Pascoag, Rhode Island, and my 93-year-old grandmother still lives there. Every time I'm back in Connecticut, we go up there for a visit. P, however, hasn't had the opportunity to visit as often as I have in the last few years, and having grown up in Edmonton, hasn't had the chance to spend a whole lot of time in New England, period. On this visit, we ate lunch at Serio's, which is a gathering place for all of Pascoag every day for lunch. My mom ordered fried clams to share - and being Friday, we could order clam cakes and chowder. These are dishes I grew up eating in Rhode Island every so often, and every year at the Eastern States Exposition (or the Big E). To drink? Coffee milk.
For those unfamiliar with these foods, clam cakes are a deep fried ball of dough, studded with bits of clam. It's sort of like a savory clam donut - and it's debatable whether it's more authentic to have more/larger bits of clam in them or less/smaller. Clam chowder, for me, always has to be white - the traditional New England clam chowder, full of potatoes and clams, with a cream broth. And coffee milk? It's just like chocolate milk, but flavored with coffee syrup. This is hard, if not impossible, to find on a restaurant menu outside of Rhode Island.
The meal, pictured above, was delicious - and definitely something anyone visiting Rhode Island should seek out as an eating experience. And with our new deep fryer, the clam cakes and fried clams might be things I'll try to recreate - results will be posted here if I do!
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