Fresh Blueberry Pie

July is a wonderful time of year for foodies.  Most produce is in season, and the market stalls and farm stands abound with succulent, juicy and fresh ingredients.  Summer provides the opportunity for the more inclined bakers and cooks to take to the garden and to the fields to pick their own ingredients.  July, in particular, is the time to go blueberry picking.

At the nature preserve where I go hiking, Trout Brook Valley, there is an orchard open to the public for free blueberry picking.  The orchard is not advertised, and remains largely unpicked.  The bountiful fields are only accessible, to those in the know, through a twenty to thirty minute hike in the woods.  This deterrent to some is a pleasure for others, and Vanessa and I are in the latter camp.

It was a bright and sunny Sunday in the early afternoon when Vanessa and I found ourselves in this orchard.  There were boundless berries to be found, and a couple parties out to find them.   It was a beautiful day, and we had a fun time at foraging for food.  Unfortunately, the berries on the whole were under-ripe and too tart.  We were collecting berries for Vanessa to bake a pie, and so sweetness was essential.  The pinkish blueberries alone would not make a great pie, so we agreed to purchase some ripe berries from a store to supplement the quart that we had gathered.  Even though our fruit was not the sweetest, we had a great time outside, picking and snacking.  

The farm stand where we stopped next was a great little store in Easton called the Apple Barn.  This specialty food store sells local fruits, flowers, plants, and an assortment of homemade jams, and jarred goods.  Most are made by the Aspetuck Orchard Farm, in whose fields we had just been picking.  We stocked up on some tastiness, including two cartons of blueberries from a farm a few towns to the north.  These berries were perfectly ripe, beautiful, and delicious.

That night, I made pork chops for dinner with corn on the cob and some leftover pasta with pesto (not homemade), and with Vanessa’s help, a salad.  The pork chops had marinated since the morning in soy sauce, brown sugar, and sesame oil, with a little bit of rice vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, Mongolian fire oil, Indian chili powder, crushed black pepper, and garlic powder.  I reduced the marinade into a sauce while I cooked the meat on a griddle.

Pork Chops

with Corn on the Cob and Pasta with Pesto

For the salad, we took basil and green leaf lettuce from our garden, and mixed in some beets, red onion, Manchego cheese, and the first heirloom tomato of the season.  The dressing was a simple balsamic Dijon vinaigrette.

Summer Salad

After dinner, Vanessa took over the kitchen.  It was baking time.  In this blog, I have often alluded to Vanessa's prowess as a baker, but I have not until now showcased her ability.  Since I was not involved with making her blueberry pie, I will let the pictures do the story telling.

The pie was absolutely delicious, and I enjoyed it for a few days as both breakfast and dessert.  This was Vanessa's first time baking a blueberry pie as well as her first time making a lattice pie top.  She did a great job, and I can't wait to taste the next treat she bakes.

As Tasty As They Are Pretty

Today's post is something special.  I have written previously on how Bill, my older brother, influenced my cooking and my general attitude about food.  Well, in our years of eating together, a reciprocity developed, and it is safe to say that he too has been influenced by my cooking and restaurant ordering. 

Bill posted a picture on Facebook of his garden zucchinis, grown at an alarming rate, which only a Los Angeles climate could allow.  Following this, he and I went back and forth about what could and should be done with the flowers of the zucchini plant.  For a couple weeks I heard nothing.  Then I arrived at work one Monday to find the following e-mail.  It seemed to fit in perfectly with David's Plate, so I could not resist sharing.  Enjoy:

"Brother,

The deed is done.  Here is how it went down.  Wife was away tonight at book club, a night I usually like to cook something nice for myself of the "wife doesn't like" or "wife won't eat" variety.  As our zucchini plants are currently full of flowers and my wife is currently on a dairy-free Weight Watchers diet, I figured this was a good night to experiment with the fried, cheese-filled squash blossoms.  My main course for the night was to be leftover turkey meatloaf, not the most flashy of entrees, so this was yet another good reason to jazz up the side dishes.

I decided to fry up three blossoms and (because why not) the three baby zucchini that were attached.  I chopped up some rosemary (along with a bit of lemon thyme and parsley) from my garden, and mixed these herbs with small chunks of brie.  I then opened the squash blossoms to stuff them.  Blossom #3 gave me a little surprise.  As I opened it to remove the stamen and pistel, I was greeted by a bee who flew out into my kitchen.  He is still in my kitchen somewhere.  I have noticed that when a blossom is fully open (usually in the morning), it usually has at least one bee just hanging out inside.  Clearly, this little chap had been so enamored of this particular blossom that he forgot to leave and it closed up around him in the afternoon.  So, a note of caution if you ever cook this dish: watch out for bees.

I twisted the blossoms closed, dipped them (and the zucchini) in some egg and then some flour (with seasoning mixed in).  Then I fried everything in olive oil, along with a slice of turkey bacon (because I don't cook regular bacon) and a rosemary sprig.  While frying these bad boys, I made a quick sauce (for the meatloaf and blossoms) consisting of a port wine reduction, fig jam, and the leftover herbs from the stuffing.  Yumm!

You can see the finished product above.  The blossoms were melt in your mouth amazing.  Fantastic.  The brie worked really well.  The fried zucchini was good, but probably not worth repeating (as it tastes much better grilled or broiled or raw, all of which are healthier).  The turkey bacon and fig port sauce were delicious and nicely complimented everything.  I'll definitely have to experiment with this again (and in a version more friendly to my wife).  I want to try combining the cheese and turkey bacon in the stuffing so that it can be more like my first experience with this dish, the amazing creation I devoured at Cafe Positano on the Amalfi coast (photo also attached).

Thanks for pushing me to do this, Dave, and thanks for being my culinary inspiration.  Happy eating!

until soon,

Brother Bill"

The Camping Trip

For Fourth of July weekend, Vanessa and I set out on an adventure.  We stuffed the car with clothing, towels, snacks, sleeping bags, and a tent, and we made off for the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York.  We had gone to college together in Saratoga Springs, and Vanessa is originally from Hoosick, NY, so we have a lot of ties to the area.  

We left Friday afternoon, after skipping out of work a little early.  Our first stop was for dinner in Albany.  We were meeting up with a friend of mine, actually my former boss from my college job at the student library.  David (yes, he is a David too) runs the visual resources department at Skidmore College, and he is an artist.  His lovely wife Vaneeta is an English Professor at The College of Saint Rose.  She is originally from India, and is a magnificent cook.

I'm sorry that I did not take any photos aside from the one above of the three of us, but I will say that we had a lovely home cooked meal of slow-cooked pork curry with sides of fresh mango, carrots, steamed rice cakes (really cool!), and a delicious cabbage and mustard seed slaw.  The pork was tender and richly flavored.  It was seasoned with, among many other things, a unique vinegar made from a kokum fruit, which Vaneeta can only get in India.  We had some wonderful chocolate tart for desert served with homemade raspberry preserves and mint from their garden, which is beautiful, immense, and largely edible!  Above we are posing together with some silly cookbooks and some black pepper corns they gifted to me from their friend's home in Coorg, India, allegedly the region with the best black pepper in the world.  They also gave me some New Mexico Female Green Chili powder, from their recent vacation there.  It smells really interesting, and of course, just sounds so ridiculous that I can't wait to try it.

After Albany, it was off to Saratoga to hang out and stay with some friend in town.  We had breakfast the next morning with Vanessa's mom and stepdad, who were in the area.  We stocked up on supplies and gifts, and were off for the mountains.  Our first full day was pretty low key.  We swam at our favorite spot on Great Sacandaga Lake, took some scenic drives through the mountains, over dirt roads, and along assorted rivers.  To the left, Vanessa stands in front of the rapids of the Sacandaga River in Hadley.  After some relaxing, some exploring, and a fair amount of driving, we reached the Village of Lake George, where we sauntered and succumbed to the tourist paraphernalia that abounded.  Between shops, we relaxed on a patio overlooking the lake vista and enjoyed some crispy fried clams and french fries.  We did not linger too long, eager to return to the wilderness, and we soon found ourselves checking into a camp site in Warrensburg along the Schroon River.  We pitched our tent, galvanized some wood into a fire, and set about the task of making a campfire supper.

To say that we were ill-equipped  to cook outside would be generous.  We brought next to nothing.  We had wooden shish kebab skewers, aluminum foil, a pocket knife, and duct tape.  The duct tape brings to mind the old Sesame Street game, "one of these things is not like the other."  Indeed, we had grabbed this item at the last minute, thinking, you never know: patching a leaky tent, mending whosics and whatnots.  In some unforeseen way, it would probably come in handy.  In any case, that was what we had.  That was what we were working with.  To eat, we had picked up some beef at a grocery in Warrensburg.  The selection was limited, and what we ended up with were beef short ribs.  We also had some mushrooms, a bell pepper, an onion, two red potatoes, salt and pepper packets, and thankfully some good bread and wine from Saratoga.  I say "thankfully," because we didn't have to do anything to those ingredients; they tasted delicious without any effort on our part.

Dinner was a challenge.  In my mind I had this idyllic recollection of a horseback expedition I took in the Argentine countryside.  A friend and I rode for hours with two gauchos (Argentina's answer to the North American cowboys), through valleys and over meadows and mountain tops.  We stopped midday in a thicket of trees.  I dismounted my horse, Calafate, and secured him to a tree.  One of the gauchos threw open his saddlebag, and out of nowhere emerged a large steak and three sausage links.  Within minutes, a fire was blazing, and an iron griddle had been staked in the ground.  The meat juices dripped and the fire let off the most tantalizing smoke - smoke that seeped in your nose, and went straight to your stomach, to give it fair warning of what was to come.  When it did, it did not disappoint.

My Fantasy Gaucho Lunch

Outside Bariloche, Argentina in 2008

My campfire experience was nothing like the gaucho meatsploitation of my memory.  To begin with, starting the fire was a real pain in the ass.  I've made camp fires before, but it had been a few years, and I was rusty.  It took a number of matches and few reconfigurations of the firewood, but eventually, very eventually, the fire was safely ablaze. 

Vanessa served as wilderness sous chef while I tended the fire, and cooked the food.  She wrapped the red potatoes in foil, and I threw them in among the hot coals.  She cleaned and chopped the vegetables, arranged them on the shish kebab skewers and I gingerly leaned them against the burning logs.  The real show-stopper was the meat, and this is where the duct tape came in handy.  The four short ribs were in total over a pound, so we had to use two skewers to support the weight. On each set of skewers we put two chunks of beef.  The skewers were then, yes, that's right, duct taped to larger sticks, leaned over the fire ring, and anchored by yet heavier sticks.

"The Stove"

The design was less than flawless, and a few problems did arise.  Two of the meat skewers started to bow under the heat of the fire and the weight of the meat.  The duct tape that secured them soon heated to a point where is began to melt.  Luckily, I saw the problem as it was happening and removed the meat from the skewers.  They had a nice char on one side, but I was either going to have to configure a new contraption or just wrap them in foil and throw them in to finish with the potatoes.  I chose the latter.  So half of the beef was cooked over an open flame, and the other half was seared and then baked.  Below is the open flame meat, right before done.

Open Flame Grilled Short Ribs

The next problem arose as the second set of ribs began to dip lower into the pit.  Vanessa and I had sat down to take a breather, and by the time I noticed the sticks tilting ever down and down, it was too late.  I did not leap up in time to catch the meat before it plummeted into ash.  I grabbed two sticks and feverishly tried to clamp and lift the now blackened beef out of their pit of doom.  All the while muttering under my breath things of which I am not too proud.

I won't say that the meat was ruined.  It was still succulent and tasty, underneath a crunchy, flaky coating of burnt char.  It was, at the very least, not what I was going for, but it was still edible, and I found it borderline enjoyable.  There was plenty of food, and the other batch of beef came out fine.  Here are some more photos of the action.

Extracting the Baked Potatoes From the Fire

Fire, Wine, and Food Wrapped in Foil

Short Ribs with Veggie-Kebab, Baked Potato and Garlic-Basil Bread



A Salamander

 

Sunday was a rainy morning, but there was enough of a respite for us to squeeze in a hike.  We climbed Crane Mountain, which was supposed to be a short hike.  The trail was indeed short, but it also happened to be near vertical.  The photo below is very telling.  The trail was a rock scramble up, a climb more than a hike.  But it was billed as a day hike.  It was in fact the longest half mile that either Vanessa or I had ever "hiked." 

That was actually the path for one grueling, steep half mile.  It was challenging, but the view was worth it.

Vanessa and I Resting on the Mountain

The descent was treacherous, as was the ensuing dirt road, which my car should receive a medal of valor for surviving.  The mountain drained us of energy, so we cooled off with some ice cream by Schroon Lake.  Back at camp, we cleaned up and showered, and made the not-too-difficult decision, that we would go out to dinner that night.  We drove to the town of Bolton Landing, on the west bank of Lake George. 

Bolton is the unsuspecting home of one of the greatest German restaurants in the United States, Pumpernickel's.  Vanessa discovered this place in college, when her German language class trekked up north for German-American Day.  We have been returning there about once or twice every year.  For dinner we enjoyed a great salad bar, with beets, pickled slaw, and all sorts of vegetables and beans.  I had some beef and barley soup, which was also enjoyable.  To drink, I had a glass of Spaten Lager, which was precisely the size beer one would expect of a German restaurant, and Vanessa drank a glass of Liebfraumilch, a German white wine.  Then for the main course we both ordered Rahmschnitzel, which is to say that be both had a sauteed veal cutlet, cooked with fresh mushrooms in a creamy, sherry wine sauce.  To sop up this delicious sauce we each had a generous pile of spaetzle, and we shared a side of pickled red cabbage, which, at Pumpernickel's, is the best cabbage I have ever eaten. 

Because we are disgusting pigs, we then shared an obscenely Germanic-sized slice of cake, which I believe was called "Slice of Heaven for Two," or something vain and self-aggrandizing like that.  It was the size of an infant child.  A hearty slice of cheesecake was, for better or worse, forced to bear the weight of a dark chocolate cake, twice it girth, which sat atop it.  The whole Teutonic ogre of a cake was glued together with dark chocolate frosting and was finished with a cloak of mini-chocolate chips.  The size of the chips would have been ironic if their numbers had been anything less than the population of a small city.  But alas, this was not the case, and the chips did abound and encase the monstrosity.  Beside the cake was a tower of whipped cream that could have fed a small nation, like Luxembourg or Liechtenstein.  The entire plate seemed a testament to the strength and ingenuity of the German people.  It was like their Eiffel Tower or their Colosseum.  It was a monster!  It was delicious.

We ate half, which would have been a decent performance following a normal sized meal, nevermind soup, salad and a Rahmschnitzel.  And oh!  Did I mention there was fresh hot pumpernickel bread?  It was a meal to remember.

Following a rather uncomfortable night sleep in the tent, we arose the next morning, packed up among a plague of mosquitoes, which sent me swatting, dancing and skipping as if performing some primitive, conjuring form of worship, and we set out.  We stopped again at Great Lake Sacandaga for a swim, as well as at a waterfall in the town of Lake Luzerne, where I indulged in a poptart breakfast.

For lunch that day, we were meeting my old music professor and thesis advisor in Saratoga Springs.  One of our favorite restaurants from our college days had recently expanded and moved locations.  The restaurant is called Maestro's, and they advertise themselves as "A Fine American Bistro."  My professor ordered a speck sandwich, served on a buttered baguette with roasted red peppers, arugula and lemon olive oil.  I had a grilled duck confit sandwich on peasant bread with brie, fig paste and apple butter; it was served with a zucchini salad.  Vanessa took the prize for best order at lunch with her lamb burger on an onion roll with feta cheese, pickled onions, wilted spinach and black pepper aioli; this came with three long handmade tator tots, which defied all expectations of the cafeteria classic.

And that was the trip.  We said our goodbyes, took one last stroll around the downtown, and drove the three hours south to our home in Connecticut.  We were tired as all hell, but we were happy as could be.  We grabbed a cheese pizza in our neighborhood to take back home, and had it with some salad that Vanessa whipped up.  That night we slept back in our soft, comfortable bed, free of mosquitoes.  We slept very, very well.

A Meal My Family Would Enjoy

Father's Day weekend was a nice one.  On Saturday, I got some work done around the apartment, went for a bike ride along the coast, exploring new neighborhoods.  I  had been considering going to see a jazz show in New York City, which was in town for four nights.  After going back and forth about it, I decided not to go into the city that night.  I would be going in the next morning to meet my parents for Father's Day, and I did not want to hassle with finding a place to sleep.  You see, I had rationed that foregoing the show that night would be foregoing the show entirely.  Thursday had been out of the question, Friday something came up, the prospects for Saturday were evaporating, and Sunday night I would be monopolized with my parents in the city. 

If I was to stay home in Connecticut that night, it would need to have a good time.  Enter the girlfriend and enter the kitchen.  We decided to have a romantic dinner in.  It had been a while since we cooked something truly special for just the two of us, and this night the stars just seemed to align.  We prepared a three-course meal that my family would have been proud of and would have really enjoyed.  What I mean by that is that each course was tremendously influenced by a particular family member of mine.  The appetizer was for my aunt Liza, the main course was for my brother Bill, and the desert was a cocktail my mother would make if my mother drank cocktails.

Aunt Liza introduced me to beets, one of the tastiest ingredients to toss into a summer salad.  She taught me her typical preparation for them, which involves boiling them until tender, chopping them into chunks and storing them for later use in a marinade of red wine vinaigrette and herbs.  This is exactly what I did to the beets, only instead of using them as an ingredient in a salad, they became the salad itself.  I made the vinaigrette with fresh thyme and chives from my garden, then I placed a pile of marinated beets a top some slices of blanched beet leaves.  Around the plate I crumbled some manchego cheese and walnuts.

Beet Salad with Manchego and Walnuts

I actually had a similar dish in a tapas restaurant not long before.  It used blue cheese, and did not use the greens from the beets.  Still, I loved the simplicity, and made this variation.  Manchego is also one of Liza's favorite cheeses, so I really had her on the mind while we ate.  This is a tad ridiculous, but we had two almost finished bottles of wine, so we did a wine paring for each course.  With the salad we each had a glass of Chardonnay, which was a little nutty and went perfectly with the walnuts in the salad.

 The next course I cannot take credit for, it was all made by my lovely Vanessa.  She doctored some tomato sauce with extra chunks of diced tomatoes, vidalia onion, and garlic.  A pile of mussels simmered in this sauce, opening up and releasing their salty broth.  Linguine was then tossed in, and the whole thing was topped with aged Parmesan cheese and a chiffonade of fresh basil.

Throughout life, in nearly every Italian restaurant I have ever dined in with my brother, he has had always favored some variation of the same dish, and that dish is whichever pasta comes with the most shellfish.  He would have drooled over this plate, and I can only hope that he drools over the picture.

Linguine Marinara with Mussels

With this course we finished a a bottle of Côtes du Rhône, and enjoyed a fresh rosemary, olive and tomato focaccia, which I had picked up that day at the New Canaan Farmer's Market.

Rosemary, Olive and Tomato Focaccia

The last part of the meal was not so much a course as a digestif or a nightcap.  Oddly, this one really reminded me of my mother, who hardly drinks anything, save an occasional sip of wine at dinner.  However, the desert was a drinkable version of her baking.  I made what was essentially a chocolate milk for grown-ups: equal parts milk and dark chocolate liquor with a splash of Chambord.  Mom does not mess around with chocolate.  She uses only the best stuff, and it is always dark, dark, dark!  She also loves to accent chocolate with a hint of fruit liquor, and the rich raspberry flavor of Chambord is her accent of choice. 

Chocolate Milk for Grown Ups

We had a truly beautiful night, dining outside on our porch, alongside the garden.  From inside the door, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman played on the stereo - cliche for those who know jazz, but a wonderfully romantic album nonetheless.  I did not have a single reservation about missing the show in the city.  In fact, as fate would have it, the next night, Father's Day, my parents and I just happened to go to a restaurant that was on the same block as the show, and I got to hear the band after all!  That, my friends, is a good weekend.

Mom's Retirement Celebration: A Very French Dinner

This past Friday was my mom's last day of work, after a long and fruitful career as a preschool teacher.  She is now a grandmother, and with my dad planning to cut back his work load in the immediate future, she decided that the timing was right for her to retire.

Not wanting to let a celebratory occasion go by with out a celebratory meal, I invited my folks over on Saturday for a French dinner.

My original plan was to attempt mom's favorite dish, beef wellington, which she does not get to eat more than once a year.  If you have never experienced this treat, beef wellington consists of a fillet minion, coated in pâté de foie gras encased in puff pastry.  It may be the most delicious way I have encountered to eat beef.  However, when I invited mom, knowing me as she does, she made one request, which was that I not make anything too caloric.  Damn it all.

Now, if I may digress, I shall explain how the meal that followed came to be.  In the summer of 2010, my family went to Europe for the wedding of a young lady who is like my other sister.  Her name is Cindy, and she came from Switzerland to live with my family for a year when I was about ten years old.  We have kept in close contact with her ever since.  Prior to her wedding in Zurich, my parents and I spent a week in the south of France.  This was my first and only trip to the culinary Mecca, but if I can help it, I will see that it is not my last.

The food in France blew my mind.  It was like nothing I had ever experienced.  Walking on the streets, everywhere I looked, every dive restaurant, every corner cafe, every little place - EVERY ONE OF THEM was a fine French bistro.  Every single piece of food that I saw in every shop window and on every passing plate, they all made me salivate.

French cooking uses only the freshest ingredients, and the society is set up in such a way that all food for sale is local.  There appeared to be no corporate food industry, no large grocery stores with food shipped from another part of the world.  Instead, food came from the outdoor markets, and the markets were staffed by farmers and artisans who grew, prepared or cultivated the goods themselves.  No food was processed or commercialized.  There was only produce and handmade foods.  Everything was specialized.  If you wanted bread, you had to go to a bread bakery, and if you wanted pastry then you had to go to a patisserie bakery.  Fruit was from the fruit seller, and fish from the fisherman.  This was such a radical departure from what I grew up knowing in the United States.  So many Americans naively believe that their food originates from the grocery store.  This way of thinking, this disregard for the origin of their food, this is why American society is so far removed from a local-supply food system.  The quality of the food and of Americans' health pays the price for this indignation.

The structure of the food system was the greatest revelation that I took away from France.  But the meals that I ate also left an indelible impression and acutely affected my own cooking style.  The single greatest cooking lesson that I ascertained in France was the potential of salads.  Two salads in particular opened my mind to what could be done to turn a salad into a complete meal.  And yes, I took pictures:

 Minced Veal with Herbs de Provence Stuffed Vegetables with Arugula Salad

 Duck Three Ways Salad

With Duck Breast Slices, Seared Duck Kidneys, and Duck Liver Pâté

The idea of throwing flavorful meats, simply prepared, on top of a pile of greens seems so basic.  But that it was such an obvious thing to do, and that the results were so magnificent was what impressed me.  Forgive me for generalizing, but men in my experience do not customarily order salads for their main course, lunch or dinner, at least not in the United States.  Women, who are on the whole more concerned about calories and their figures, are much more likely to have just a salad for a meal.  The salads that I had in France took the whole notion of "just a salad," and threw it out the window.  It proved to me that there is no reason why a salad cannot be a star at a dinner table.  It can be beautiful, it can be flavorful, and it can be filling.  Here are two other salads that I enjoyed in France:

 Salad with Hard Boiled Egg, Corn, Tomatoes and Mushroom

And Crepes (All Three Plates Were Shared)

 Salad with Pink Pepper Corns and Fresh Cevre on Croutons

When I returned to the States, I tried to implement what I had learned into practice.  Below is a Frenched rack of lamb I prepared with Dijon mustard and herbs, atop an arugula salad with beets in a sesame sauce.

 Dijon Glazed Rack of Lamb and Arugula Salad with Beats and Sesame

Then, a weekend lunch, my variation of a Nicoise Salad, with hard boiled egg, tuna, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, and raisins in an herbed lemon vinaigrette.

  Salad Nicoise

I took what I learned in France, and I did my best to incorporate it into my own cooking.  Now that the warm weather is upon us, and fresh fruits and vegetables are once again locally abundant, I hope to prepare many healthy salad meals for the girls and myself.

Now back to my mom's celebratory dinner. 

I decided that in order to keep things relatively healthy, I would attempt to recreate a salad dinner that I had enjoyed in Cannes, France.  The first salad pictured on this post was the main course: the minced veal with herbs de Provence stuffed vegetables with arugula.  For an appetizer, I had a country style pâté, and for desert, a chocolate layered/mouse/cake thing - pretty wonderful meal. 

For Mom's retirement meal, I bought a pre-made country style pâté.  Sorry to disappoint the readers who expected me to make it myself (I'll try some day soon).  Warm crusty bread, on which to spread the meat, is the most traditional accompaniment for pâté.  It also may be served with mustard (Dijon, grainy or both), and some kind of marmalade or fruit preserve.  Pâté can be categorized as a type of charcuterie, which is the fancy name for meat that has been salted, smoked or otherwise cured.  It is at its essence just a dressed up, spreadable variation of your mom's meatloaf.  Charcuterie is traditionally served with various accoutrements.  Some examples include dried fruit, nuts, cheese, and pickled foods.  For me, the appeal of charcuterie is twofold: 1) the savory accentuated flavor of the meat, enhanced by the curing process, and 2) playing with the accoutrements, combining flavors so that each bite is different.  For my pâté, I went all out with accoutrements.  

 

Country Style Pork Pâté with Accoutrements

Clockwise from top: pâté and microgreens, crusty bread, walnuts, Dijon mustard, 

Manchego cheese, dried currents, corniches, fig jam, edible flower

For the main course, I did my best to recreate the stuffed vegetables.  But for a few reasons, which I will not go into, I decided against baking the meat and vegetables together.  Instead, I cooked the ground veal on the stove top along with the herbs, some diced shallots, and a little brandy.  I then "stuffed" or really topped the  roasted vegetables with the veal.  I roasted yellow zucchini, eggplant, portabello mushrooms, yellow pepper, and (for my mom who can't have peppers) a vidalia onion.  I put four "stuffed" vegetables on each plate with a pile of arugula and micro greens, and topped everything with a simple salad dressing of olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar. 

Minced Veal with Herbs de Provence "Stuffed" Vegetables

With Arugula and Micro Green Salad and Aged Balsamic Vinaigrette

Roasted "Stuffed" Vegetables: 

Eggplant, Vidalia Onion (above), Yellow Pepper (below), Zucchini Squash, Portabello Mushroom

We indulged in a bubbly bottle of Moscato with the meal, and for desert, a chocolate chip, walnut banana bread, baked by my mother.  A good time was had by all.

Apologies to my readers for such a long post today.

And

Congratulations to my mom on entering this new chapter of her life, and for her fruitful and fulfilling career! 

It's Too Darn Hot

This week brought a terrible heat wave across much of the country, and my part of Connecticut was no exception.  Our apartment has no air conditioning, and the air flow from one end of the house to the other is agonizingly stagnant.  Heat causes physical discomfort as well as mental strain, and Vanessa and I found ourselves arguing over nuances of fan positioning and the mechanics of air airflow and temperature change.  So stupid! 

It was really, just too darn hot for June.  On the second day of the heat wave I managed to get away for a hike and swim with my friend Jackie, visiting home from the Peace Corps in Honduras.  We timed the outing perfectly in a respite between a pass-over thunder storm and a huge downpour that engulfed the area for the rest of the evening.  It was so nice to be in water on such a hot day.  We swam in a small natural pool, formed under a tiny waterfall in a local river, a place that I have returned to year after year since I was in high school.

Vanessa coincidentally, was also visiting a best friend of hers that, like me, she had not seen for a year.  Her visit required more of a trip than mine, and her car is insufferable in the heat.  Not only does her air conditioning not work, but the driver's window does not open!  The poor girl came home and collapsed. 

Now eventually this story needs to get to some food, right?  Well, here it comes.  I did not want to cook.  I did not want to turn on the stove for any significant period of time, and I certainly did not want to turn on the oven at all.  So what does one make when one is drained, tired, and wants to avoid the heat?

Pesto.

My herb garden has been more or less coming along these last few weeks; some herbs are healthy but slow to grow, some are deteriorating, and others (my chervil) have flat out died.  Fortunately, the most important herb in the garden, the basil, has taken off.  In the pouring rain that marked the end of the heat wave, I went out in my yellow raincoat, and snipped sprig after sprig of basil.  My basil is doing so well, that I daresay I could make pesto three times this week, and not hinder the plant's growth.

Fettuccine Rigate con Pesto

Dinner was delicious.  It sure as hell felt like summer, so it was refreshing to eat as if it were, nice and light.  The pesto, for those who care, was as basic as pesto gets: basil, toasted pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, and grated parmesan cheese.  Very little actual cooking was done, just boiling water for pasta and toasting some nuts - everything else just came together in the food processor.

Thank God the heat is now over!

Indonesian Chicken

Last Wednesday I cooked some skinless chicken breasts in an Indonesian-style coconut curry.  When asked what she wanted done to the meat, Vanessa requested Indian food, so I looked through an Asian cookbook, and figured this was culinarily close enough.  It also happened to sound really delicious. 

I have recommended this cookbook before on this blog, but I really cannot say enough good things about it.  In fact, click here to buy it - you really should.  There are sections in the book on regional foods from China, Indonesia, Singapore/Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Laos/Cambodia, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, India/Pakistan, Burma, and Sri Lanka.  It calls for authentic spices and ingredients, not premade sauces or spice mixes.  Many recipes may be difficult if you do not have an overstocked pantry, but there are so many tantalizing recipes and pictures that it may encourage you to try new things.  I have certainly learned a great deal from this book.

For the dish that I made, which was a slight modification from the book's recipe, I blended onion, garlic, ginger and a little water into a paste in a food processor.  Then I cooked this in a pan with some coconut milk, turmeric, coriander, white pepper, salt, sriracha chili sauce, and ponzu (a Japanese citrus sauce that I used instead of the called for kaffir lime leaves).  I placed the chicken breasts, whole, in this mixture, and cooked them over a low heat for about forty minutes.  Then I removed the chicken, caked with chunks of onion sauce, and seared them on a grill pan to caramelize.  I reduced the sauce and pored it over the meat on the plate.  To go with this, I made some cardamom infused jasmine rice, with green peas and almond slivers.  I also heated up some frozen naan to help soak up the sauce.  Everything was topped with diced scallion and fresh cilantro from my herb garden.

Indonesian-Style Coconut Chicken

Cardamom Infused Jasmine Rice and Naan

Admittedly, this meal was lacking in vegetables.  I always try to cook a protein, starch and vegetable in every meal, and I dropped the ball on this one (the few peas mixed with the rice really should not count).  Everything was tasty though, so no one minded.

Another picture that I wanted to share, entirely unrelated, is of this amazing sandwich that I had last weekend in Florida.  Vanessa and I went to Amelia Island with my family for my cousin's wedding.  We had a great mini-vacation on the beach and at various wedding-related parties.  For lunch one day in the town of Fernandina Beach, we ate at a place called LuLu's.  Below is my fried soft shell crab sandwich, which was AMAZING!!!!