Savour Fare » Summer

Essential Potato Salad

Kate — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:44:35 +0000

Labor Day weekend is bittersweet, like the end of an affair. Three days of sunshine, of flip-flops, of beaches and barbecue. But Tuesday lurks around the corner, like a raincloud with the smell of ozone to the air. There’s almost a sense of desperation — just one more cookout! — before fall settles in, with its dark evenings, the smell of cinnamon and freshly-sharpened pencils, and its long march to winter.

I’ve been busy collecting summer, whether it’s making just one more fresh fruit pie, canning a batch of tomato jam, downing bottles of rose, or just sneaking outside to enjoy the sunset. I keep getting ideas and checking them off the list: Hollywood Bowl tickets, picnics, Lemonade! And one of my favorite summer foods is potato salad. I wanted to get in one more potato salad before roast potatoes become de rigueur.

I love old fashioned potato salad made by my grandmother, but this isn’t that. I also love newfangled potato salads, but this isn’t that, either. This is potato salad reduced to its essentials — a little mayonnaise, a sprinkle of tart vinegar, the oniony breath of chives, and at the end, a dusting of lemon, to add aroma and color, to wake the tastebuds and make the salad sing. It’s hardly a recipe at all, but it’s well worth making all the same, in this last weekend of summer.
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Preserving Summer — Tomato Jam

Kate — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:43:13 +0000

How on earth is it the end of August? Labor Day is just around the corner, but I still have so much summer to get in! We haven’t gone to the beach, or made s’mores, or even gone to the Hollywood Bowl. And I need to get in several more hours being lazy in the hammock. I feel like I’m turning into one of those old people who is constantly exclaiming about how fast time passes, but it does. This summer has passed in the blink of an eye.

When I was a child, the summers stretched into infinity. I don’t know if it was that each summer was a greater proportion of my life, or if it was just that I had more time to slow down, visit the library, stretch out on the grass with a book, and let time stop.

The Nuni is in that childhood stretch of time passing slowly, and she so badly wants it to charge on, full speed ahead. In the past few weeks, the Nuni (who will turn four in less than a month) has adopted a new persona, and has told anyone who will listen that her name is Polish (as in making silver shine, not as in Pope John Paul II), and she is seven. Those two things are intertwined. Of course, it is moments like this that make me want to stop time, to preserve forever the moment when my daughter is on the cusp of childhood, and nothing sounds better than being seven.

I can’t stop time, but I can preserve the summer just a little, and capture some of my childhood summers at the same time. When I was a little girl, I would spend some of those infinite summers with my great grandmother, eating berries out of her garden, getting into her cookie jar (I can still remember where it was kept), and eating her homemade tomato jam. Not a chutney, or another version of ketchup, the way so many tomato preserves recipes are, but a tomato jam, brightened with lemon, with that musky tomato flavor and the pure sweetness of preserved summer. Perfect on toast, for that lazy summer breakfast, this really is summer in a jar.

Recipe
Sweet Tomato Jam
4.5 lbs ripe red tomatoes
4.5 lbs granulated sugar
2 lemons

Using a sharp knife, score the bottoms of each tomato in a cross, then plunge the tomato into boiling water for about 20 seconds. Remove and let cool, and when cool enough to handle, peel and roughly chop the tomatoes over a large pot, to catch the juices. (This is not a neat process. You might want to wear an apron.) Discard the skins, and place the tomato chunks into the pot.

Add the lemon juice to the pot, and add the lemon halves to the pot with the tomatoes. Heat the tomatoes over medium heat. Add the sugar, 1 cup at a time, stirring after each addition, and waiting about 10 minutes in between each addition. Lightly crush the tomatoes, or use a hand blender to puree slightly, and let cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the jam begins to jell and the entire mixture is bubbling like a swamp, being careful not to let it burn. Remove the lemon halves.

Ladle into hot canning jars with new lids, and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Makes approximately 2 pints.

Mini Key Lime Yogurt Pies in Jars

Kate — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 22:58:19 +0000

I have this vision of summer. Long, twilit evenings spent outdoors. A cold glass of wine, some fairy lights. There’s music playing in the background. The kids are running around. There’s laughter, and good conversation, and the air is cool. We linger over dinner. The food is delightful — refreshing, light, playful. And then, since nobody wants to leave, we cap off the evening with dessert. Nothing too sweet or too heavy. Just a little something sweet, something light, something fun.

Summer should be FUN.

The reality of summer doesn’t always match my vision. Childhood doesn’t prepare you for the hard, cold, reality that most jobs don’t offer a summer vacation. My summer evenings are often spent in the car, in a long sweaty slog through traffic. I come home to a house that’s 90 degrees (in my fantasy life, I often forget that summer is HOT), and decide whether to open the windows, letting the dubious cooling effects of outside air rush into the house, along with flies, stinkbugs, and of course, mosquitoes, or whether to close off the outdoors, turn on the air conditioning, and cocoon. And get bitten my mosquitoes anyway. Friends are busy, or out of town, and dinner is a ham sandwich, as that’s just about all Nuni will eat these days. Summer reality has its joys – ripe tomatoes from the garden, and the twilights are long. We do eat outdoors. But my reality is that summer also has its aggravations, and isn’t any more fun than any of the other four seasons.

At least dessert can still be fun, right?

These tiny pies are fun. First of all – tiny pies? Always fun. Put them in jars and you double the fun (and make them super easy to transport for a picnic or a beach trip — see? More fun.) These are tart and refreshing and, unlike traditional key lime pies, light, low fat and relatively healthy. Lightened with egg whites, tangy with yogurt and lime juice, these mini pies are what summer was meant to be.

I was inspired to make these because, after a meeting of Food Bloggers Los Angeles at my house (which was, I admit it, quite fun, though also quite hot), I was left with a bag of key limes the kind people at Melissa’s Produce gave me, and a couple of tubs of Vanilla fat free Greek yogurt from Stonyfield Farms. Yogurt and limes ends up being an inspired combination.

Recipe
Mini Key Lime Yogurt Pies in Jars
Adapted from Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax

If you don’t have key limes, you can substitute with regular lime juice. I found the best jars for these are little 4 oz. canning jars. You can also pop them in the freezer with the lid on, and either let them thaw in the picnic basket or, on especially hot days, eat them frozen.

1/2 c. milk
3/4 packet gelatin
2 egg yolks
1/2 c. key lime juice (12 limes)
1/4 c. sugar, divided
1/2 cup nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt
2 egg whites
2 oz. Trader Joe’s cats’ cookies (these are easily replaced with gluten free cookies to make these gluten free)

6 4 oz. canning jars

Sprinkle the gelatin over the milk, and wait a few minutes until the gelatin has softened.. Remove 1 Tablespoon of the milk gelatin mixture and set aside. Heat remainder of milk mixture to nearly boiling.

Mix the reserved milk with egg yolks and 2 Tablespoons sugar and beat until combined. Add the hot milk mixture, then return mixture to stovetop and heat until thickened enough to coat a spoon. Add yogurt and lime juice. Chill until cold, stirring periodically.

Meanwhile crush the cats cookies until fine, and divide the crumbs among the jars.

Beat the egg whites with remaining 2 T sugar until stiff. Fold the egg whites into the chilled lime mixture, then pour the mixture into the jars on top of the crumbs.

Cap with the jar lids and chill until solid. Serve topped with whipped cream.

Melt

Greensicles – Avocado Mint Ice Cream Pops

Kate — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 19:32:44 +0000

Any parent of a 3 year old knows that in the summertime, popsicles are the ultimate treat. They are cold, for one, which is always a plus in the kind of heat we’ve been having. Sweet tends to rank highly for most three year olds I know as well. And best of all, they are messy. Gloriously, drippily, creamily messy.

But the dayglo colors and artificial flavors in most supermarket popsicles do not appeal to adults. We like our treats a little more decadent, a little more sophisticated. Something creamy, with subtle, sweet flavors. But we still like the fun of a frozen treat on a stick.

These avocado mint ice cream pops please both the kids and the adults. They check the boxes of sweet, cold and messy, but they’re also outrageously creamy and they have a flavor that you can’t quite place. The perfect cold and creamy treat for the steamy hot days of summer.

Recipe
Greensicles
2 Ripe Hass Avocados
1/2 can (about 2/3 cup) sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
Juice from 1 lime

In a small food processor or blender, whizz the mint leaves a few times to chop.
Remove the pits from the avocado, scoop out the flesh from the skins.
Add to the food processor the avocado flesh, the condensed milk and the lime juice and blend until creamy.

Pour the avocado mixture into 4 popsicle molds and freeze until firm. Eat quickly or with a lot of napkins.

Blueberry Corn Pie

Kate — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:00:10 +0000

I have discovered the REAL secret to pie. No, not a foolproof, ultra-rich crust (though I’ve got that), or even a more traditional tender, flaky all-butter crust (although I’ve pretty much got that down, too). It’s not even a pie filling good enough to make a grown man cry. No, the secret of pie is that once you start making it, you get the knack of the mixing and the rolling and the dab of this and the dab of that, it becomes completely addictive. It also becomes easy, which tempts you into dangerous waters. You start messing around, and getting fancy.

I’ve been thinking about this pie for a while. I think that blueberries and corn sound like an eminently reasonable combination, but every time I mention it to someone, they say “Hmmmm…” I was inspired by this savory corn and tomato pie I made last summer, which I still dream about, and by the fact that corn and blueberries are both native American crops, which make this a perfect fourth of July pie. There are also those lyrics from South Pacific: “I’m as corny as Kansas in August, I’m as normal as blueberry pie…”

Whatever the inspiration, this is a pie to keep. The corn adds its own crunchy sweetness to the soft blueberries, and the native starch in the corn helps set the pie filling. Adding cornmeal to my standard butter crust also enhances the corn flavor as well as adding a nice crunch. The result is an all-American, height of summer pie to end all pies. Only of course, it won’t.

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Swedish Midsummer Strawberry Meringue Layer Cake

Kate — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 19:48:18 +0000

To me, there’s something a bit mystical about Midsummer’s Day, the longest one in the whole year. Perhaps it was being raised by a Shakespeare professor — I half expect to see fairies peeping through the trees in the long, slow evening, tempting me with apricocks and dewberries, purple grapes, green figs and mulberries. Perhaps it’s just that deepseated human yearning for light and sunshine.

Or maybe it’s the strawberries.

In Sweden, whose northern latitude means the dark of winter is very dark indeed, they know how to celebrate the glorious (very) long days at midsummer. In the middle of June, they hold a midsummer festival, featuring flowers, feasting, and the short strawberry season.

This cake is inspired by the traditional Jordgubbstårta, or Swedish Midsummer Strawberry Cake. It’s traditionally made with spongecake, strawberries and cream, but I decided to tart it up a bit by replacing the spongecake with layers of almond laced meringue, and giving them a Scandinavian flair by adding a trace of cardamom. It doesn’t require any special pans — the meringue is just dolloped onto baking sheets lined with parchment and greased.

Then spread into pre-set circles and baked in a very low, slow oven for a few hours before you stack them with cream and strawberries.

The result is a cross between a Swedish Midsummer Cake, a French Macaron or Dacquoise (the big sister to the macaron), an English Victoria Sponge, an American strawberry shortcake, an Australian Pavlova and my weird imagination. A very good cross. Let’s just say that four people demolished the entirety of this eight inch cake in one sitting. The edges of the meringue stay crisp, while the cream and the juicy strawberries soften the center into a creamy, light cake. It’s the very essence of summer — light and almost insubstantial, but deeply satisfying.
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Provencal Grilled Chicken Breasts and Fennel

Kate — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 19:47:35 +0000

I have a confession to make: I don’t grill.

I plan grilled meals. I prepare foods for grilling. I even bought the grills (we have both charcoal and gas). But I have no idea how to use the damn things. Every time I want dinner on the barbecue I have to bat my eyes and ask Ken to fire it up. (Southerners, do not freak out. Californians call grills barbecues. So do Australians, I think. We know it is not the same thing.) I would say this is a problem that should be fixed, except it IS kind of nice to say, “Here honey. You’re cooking tonight.”

Then I get hooked on recipes like this one. Meat and vegetables plus a few herbs and spices plus fire equals a super flavorful (and totally healthy!) meal. So I start to want to grill every night. And of course, Ken often works late, leaving my grilling urges unsatisfied. Maybe I should figure this out after all.

I threw this together one night and based it on the flavors from a summer in the South of France — saffron and garlic and fennel from Bouillabaisse, garlic and wine and oranges and herbs de provence from everything else. It takes no time to put together, and I wasn’t even planning to share it (hence the lack of carefully styled photography) but it was too good not to. This is going on the menu again and again this summer (and maybe into fall and winter too — there are advantages to living in Los Angeles.)

Now, if only I knew how to grill….

Recipe:
Provencal Grilled Chicken Breasts and Fennel

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 T Herbes de Provence
1 T Maldon salt or another flaky sea salt
1/2 tsp. saffron
3 cloves garlic
3 T olive oil
1/2 c. dry vermouth
zest from 1 orange
2 bulbs fennel
additional olive oil, salt, and herbes de provence

Cut the chicken in half lengthwise to make thin pieces of chicken — this helps them grill more evenly.

In a small bowl, combine the salt, herbes de provence and saffron. Rub the mixture all over both sides of the chicken breast.

In a dish, arrange the chicken breasts, then pour in wine and olive oil. Mince the garlic and scatter over the top, sprinkle on the orange zest. Let sit at least 30 minutes, but up to a day (in the refrigerator, natch.)

Remove the green parts from the fennel. Thickly slice the bulbs lengthwise, brush each piece with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and herbes de provence.

Grill the chicken and the fennel over medium heat (the fennel takes longer than the chicken and retains some crunch).

Serve with sliced fennel, brushed with evoo and grilled.

Roasted Rhubarb Clafoutis

Kate — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:47:38 +0000

I have a terrible sweet tooth (as you may have divined if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time), but my sweet tooth is not typical. Not for me the sweetness overload, the gooey cakes, the sugary cookies and candies. I prefer a more subtle sweetness, balanced by savory, or tart, or nutty flavors. Something that could easily be served for breakfast or afternoon tea.

Enter the clafoutis. A classic French dessert that’s sometimes described as a custard, sometimes as a pancake. It is a custard with flour, a pancake with more cream. Or it’s own thing. An eggy, custardy, but not insubstantial dessert with a subtle sweetness that is braced by whatever fruit it is made with. It’s not much to look at, generally — it’s really a country casserole, with nubs of fruit poking through a golden, eggy crust. It’s practically foolproof to make, and the batter comes together almost instantaneously. And yes, I am hooked.

The classic clafoutis is made with cherries, and indeed, a cherry clafoutis was on my agenda as I hit the grocery store. But then I spied the rhubarb — enticingly ruby stalks promising fragrance and tartness and that indefinable exotic yet familiar flavor that only rhubarb offers — and I was a goner.

I adore rhubarb everything, and I like it best where the flavor of the rhubarb shines through without much adornment in the form of strawberries or orange juice or other such nonsense. Rhubarb does, however, pair beautifully with custard, as the English know so well, and I thought it would make a lovely clafoutis — it’s melting tenderness complementing the silkiness of the custard/pancake.

Not too sweet, fragrant and juicy from the rhubarb, with the eggy structure of the clafoutis? Yes please.

Recipe
Roasted Rhubarb Clafoutis
The excellent clafoutis base is from Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table. It can be adapted for any fruit.

For the rhubarb:
1 lb. rhubarb
3 T. granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Chop the rhubarb into roughly 1 inch pieces, taking care to discard the leaves. In a 10X6 baking dish, toss the rhubarb pieces with the sugar. Roast 10-15 minutes, or until the rhubarb is tender.

For the clafoutis:
3 eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus additional for sprinkling
Pinch of salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream

Reduce oven heat to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, whisk the eggs together with the sugar until blended. Add salt and vanilla, whisk until combined. Whisk in flour until thoroughly combined, then whisk in cream and milk.
Pour Clafoutis batter over the roasted rhubarb. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until the clafoutis is puffy and golden. Sprinkle additional granulated sugar over the top, and serve with whipped cream.

Japanese Ramen Salad

Kate — Fri, 20 May 2011 22:46:37 +0000

It’s far too cold in Los Angeles this week to even think of having a picnic, or eating a salad. We’ve had rain and fog and nighttime temperatures in the 40′s. I’ve been digging out my thick sweaters and my boots and thinking of building a fire in the fireplace. It’s MAY, people! I live in Los Angeles! Apparently Mother Nature didn’t get the message.

Regardless of the weather, Memorial Day is around the corner! Which means PICNICS! And POTLUCKS! Or mayonnaise slowly congealing in the hot sun until it becomes liquid death, and “I’m a vegetarian/lactose intolerant/in a neurotic relationship with pasta.” Well, given these parameters, have I got the dish for you. I got it from my friend Corrine (of the apparently departed casavillecooking) who deals with dairy and egg allergies in her family, and is therefore a great source of vegan and dairy-free recipes. This dish is a perfect potluck dish — it’s vegan (or not, depending on your additions), dairy-free, egg-free, and not too starchy. You can make it gluten-free by replacing the ramen noodles with rice noodles fried in a little oil. It’s also easy and quick to make, can be scaled up or down, and can be adapted to suit your tastes and your audience. With no mayonnaise, it will hold for a few hours without refrigeration (it also makes a great brown bag lunch dish). And did I mention it’s delicious? Flavorful, kid friendly — it even features healthy vegetables!

So really, what are you waiting for?

Oh yeah, the recipe.

Recipe
Japanese Ramen Salad
Adapted from Casaville Cooking
Salad:
8 green onions, finely sliced
1 lb shredded green cabbage
two 3 oz packages of ramen noodles, broken
1/4 cup toasted sliced almonds
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds
6-8 oz. firm seasoned tofu, cut into cubes OR 6-8 oz. cooked chicken, cut into cubes (optional)

Dressing:

Place chopped cabbage, green onions, sesame seeds and almonds in a large bowl. Toss with dressing and cover overnight. Toss before serving

Dressing

3 T sugar
1/3 cup olive oil or peanut oil
6 T rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

In a large bowl, combine scallions, cabbage, ramen noodles, almonds, sesame seeds, and tofu or chicken. Toss lightly to combine. Combine all ingredients for dressing, toss with salad. This can be made in advance.

Grilled Brined Pork Loin – Indian Summer

Kate — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 12:48:48 +0000

There are times when all I want to cook and eat is super simple comfort food. Then there are other times when I’m willing to put in a little (or a lot!) of effort to make something spectacular. And then there are the times (well, most of the times, to be frank) where I want something spectacular for little to no effort. And that’s where this recipe for grilled brined pork loin comes in.

This is one of those recipes my mom used to make when I was growing up. Because it’s so delicious, and because I knew it took three days to make, I always used to request it for special occasions — my birthday, my high school graduation, spring break in college, when I always went home because it was 85 degrees in LA and 35 in New Haven. So I asked my mother for the recipe, and realized she had been hoodwinking me all these years.

You see, this pork loin does take three days. But the active time is about 45 minutes, and it’s only 5 minutes if you make someone else grill (like I always do — thanks honey!) I often add an extra 3 minutes and make a compound butter my mixing a couple spoonfuls of red wine and a clove of minced garlic into some softened butter (you can also add chopped cilantro and lime juice), chilling it in the refrigerator, and then letting a pat melt over the freshly grilled pork. And for that 5 (or minutes of effort, you get aromatic, juicy flavorful pork with a seared crust and a tender pink interior that’s worthy of the specialest of special occasions. That is the kind of recipe I can get behind.

Recipe
Brined Grilled Pork Loin

1/2 tsp. cumin seeds (My mom uses 5 coriander seeds instead, but I was out of coriander. They’re both good)
10 black peppercorns
5 juniper berries
1 gal water
1/4 c. sugar
2 T salt
6 bay leaves
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 sprigs marjoram
1 pork loin (about 3-5 lbs.)

Lightly crush the cumin seeds, peppercorns and juniper berries. Heat 1 c. water, dissolve the sugar and the salt in the hot water.

In a large bowl, place the pork loin, the water/sugar mixture, the remainder of the water, the spices and the herbs. Cover and refrigerate for 2-3 days.

Remove the pork loin from the brine (don’t rinse it off), grill over indirect heat until the center reaches 137 degrees. (If you cook large pieces of meat with any regularity, you should invest in one of these babies: Probe Thermometer. It will change your life.) The timing depends on the size of your loin and your grill.

Let the loin rest for 10-15 minutes, then slice and serve.