Summer's Bounty

The abundance of available fruit changed our planned menu for today. Meg’s unintended purchase of practically every available fruit in the markets this week prompted her to bake bread when she got home and call Sue suggesting an early start to our blog day. The platter includes the following: peach, Anjou pear, star fruit, black apricots (pluots), figs(with and without prosciutto), cantaloupe with prosciutto, bread and candied pecans.   The picture doesn’t do justice to the mouthwatering flavors. They were juicy, perfectly ripe and luscious! Throw in a bottle of Prosecco and you have a wonderful start to a summer meal. Wouldn’t it be lovely to start every day this way?

 

So what had we planned for this meal?  Meg found the recipe for this tart while she was looking for a recipe for fresh lavender cookies. She found the cookie recipe and with any luck they actually may make it to a future blog, but we digress.  The picture of this tart was irresistible, and the ingredient list sealed the deal. 

Tart in progress. 

Tart out of the oven

Goat Cheese Tart

Source: “Cool Food”, Laurel Glen Publishing, San Diego, California

Pastry
1 c all-purpose flour
¼ c olive oil
3 - 4 T cold water

Filling
1 T olive oil
2 onions, thinly sliced
1 t thyme leaves
½ c ricotta cheese
3 ½ oz goat cheese
2 T pitted Nicoise olives
1 egg, lightly beaten
¼ c whipping cream

For the pastry, sift the flour and a pinch of salt into a large bowl and make a well.  Add the olive oil and mix with a flat-bladed knife until crumbly.  Gradually add 3 – 4 T cold water until mixture comes together.  Remove and pat together to form a disk.  Chill for 30 minutes.

For the filling, heat the olive oil in a frying pan.  Add the onions, cover, and cook over low heat for 30 minutes.  Season and stir in half the thyme.  Cool slightly.

Preheat the oven to 350’.  Lightly flour the work surface and roll out the pastry to a 12 inch circle.
Evenly spread the onion over the pastry, leaving a ¾ inch border.  Sprinkle the ricotta and the goat cheese evenly over the onions.  Place the olives over the cheeses, then sprinkle with the remaining thyme.  Fold the pastry border in to the edge of the filling, gently pinching as you go.

Combine the egg and cream, then carefully pour over the filling.  Bake on a heated cookie sheet in the lower half of the oven for 45 minutes or until the  pastry is golden.  Serve warm or at room temperature.


We decided a tomato salad would be the perfect (and prettiest) foil for the richness of the tart. If you are going to make a tomato salad pick the BEST tomatoes that you can find!  The ones we found were bursting with flavor. The addition of some good Italian extra virgin olive oil, a touch of vinegar and fresh thyme rounded out the vinaigrette. Right before serving we add some freshly cut basil. Heaven!

Glorious Tomatoes!

Glorious Grape Tomato Salad
Recipe developed by Sue & Meg For Saturday Night Specials 6/29/2013

2 pints multi-colored grape tomatoes, halved

Dressing:
1 garlic clove, grated
3 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
3 Tbsp. best quality extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp. fresh thyme
Fresh grated black pepper to taste
3 large basil leaves for garnish

Combine dressing ingredients, except basil and toss with tomatoes. Put in a shallow bowl and leave at room temperature for 1-4 hours to marinate, turning once an hour or so.
When ready to serve, top with thinly cut basil.

Dining al fresco

We had planned another strawberry ice cream dessert, then Meg saw the picture of this semifreddo and called Sue. We are nothing if not flexible, especially when it comes to food!  This does not require an ice cream maker and it has pistachios!

Strawberry Pistachio Semifreddo

Recipe by Greg Lofts; marthastewart.com
Serves: 12
Active prep time: 40 minutes; total time 12 hours, 40 minutes

½ c unsalted roasted shelled pistachios
8 oz strawberries, hulled (about 2 cups)
½ c plus 3 T sugar, divided
3 large egg yolks, room temperature
1 ½ c cold heavy cream
½ t pure vanilla extract

Line a standard 5 x 9 inch loaf pan with plastic wrap, leaving a 2 inch overhang on all sides.  Pulse pistachios in a food processor until coarsely chopped (some will break down to a coarse grind).  Transfer to a small bowl; do not wipe processor clean.  Place strawberries and 3 T sugar in processor; puree until smooth and transfer to a fine sieve set over a bowl.  Stir puree, pressing on solids to extract as much liquid as possible; discard solids.

Combine egg yolks and remaining ½ c sugar in a bowl set over a pot of simmering water.  Beat on high speed (or vigorously by hand) until pale yellow and tripled in volume, about 3 minutes.  Transfer bowl to a larger bowl of ice water; stir until mixture is very thick and cool, about 3 minutes.
Beat together cream and vanilla in a large bowl until soft peaks form.  Whisk 1/3 of whipped cream into egg mixture, whisking until smooth, then fold into remaining cream with a rubber spatula just until thoroughly incorporated.

Pour ½ of cream mixture into strawberry puree.  Gently fold together until thoroughly incorporated, then pour into loaf pan and smooth top.  Fold pistachios into remaining cream mixture and pour evenly over strawberry cream, smooth top.  Fold plastic wrap over surface and freeze at least 12 hours and up to 3 days. To serve, peel plastic from surface.  Invert pan onto a cutting board.  Unmold semifreddo, remove plastic, and cut crosswise into ¾ inch slices.

Our unsolicited and biased opinions:

While the flour and olive oil crust for the tart sounded intriguing, it was difficult to work with. We decided to use a pizza stone instead of the hot baking sheet and to transfer the tart before adding the egg and cream mixture. We used a flexible cutting board to roll out the dough. After adding the onions, cheeses and olives we could not get it slide to the pizza stone. Too bad there wasn’t someone to take pictures of our various failed attempts. It could have been funny if we weren’t so hungry. We finally decided to pop the tart into the freezer to firm it up which made it easier to transfer.

Our changes included using the entire 4 ounce package of fresh goat cheese, double the amount of fresh thyme and about ½ cup of Kalamata olives, with excellent results.  

The crust needed more salt – we think a ½ teaspoon. For once Sue followed directions and now we want to change them.

 The semifreddo was outstanding! There wasn’t too much sugar and the freshness of the strawberries came through. And then, there was the decadent pistachio layer. Really, this was one of the best desserts we have ever made. Period.

We split a bottle of Cupcake Prosecco (our first) between the fruit course and the dessert. Sue found it at Raley’s Supermarket on sale (about $12.84) and is heading back for more.

 

 

Welcome Summer! We are so glad you are here!

A Bit Of Mango Madness . . . .

Meg was having lunch and watching the Food Network, (big surprise), when she saw the Barefoot Contessa making frozen mango daiquiris. She quickly reversed the show, wrote down the ingredients,  ran into the kitchen, made up a double batch and called Sue. Lucky for us it is mango season!

We found no need for crushed ice, we just slurped them up straight out of the freezer!

Mango Daiquiri

Mango Daiquiris
Copyright 2004, Ina Garten, All Rights Reserved

Prep Time:  10 min
Inactive Prep Time:  --
Cook Time:  --
Level:  Easy
Serves:  4 serving

Ingredients
1 ripe mango, peeled, seeded and chopped
1/4 cup lime juice (2 limes)
1 teaspoon sugar syrup
3/4 cup white rum
Crushed Ice

Directions
Place the mango, lime juice, sugar syrup and rum in a blender and process until smooth.
Pour the mixture over a glass full of crushed ice.

Note: To make sugar syrup, heat 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water in a small saucepan until the sugar dissolves.


Once started down the mango road, we found  ourselves in the tropics, and this Thai shrimp noodle salad sounded exotic and perfect for a summer meal. 

The noodle salad provided the opportunity to add three new ingredients to our pantries; Kecap manis, sweet chili sauce and “instant” Asian egg noodles. We found all three in a local Asian market.  We had never heard of the kecap manis, which prompted an internet search where we found this description:

Kecap manis
Other names: kecap manise, ketjap manis

[KEH-chuhp MAH-nees] An Indonesian sauce similar to a sweet soy sauce flavored with garlic and/or star anise. Kecap manis is sweetened with palm sugar and is used as a condiment. The sauce is thick and not at all salty and has a very rich caramely flavor.

Surprisingly, this was not a spicy dish. We didn’t know how hot the sweet chili sauce would be, so we added three hot chilies on the side for extra heat. Sue used all three including the mystery (hottest) pepper in varying amounts, whereas Meg only added a little jalapeno and Fresno. (No guts, no glory.) But to be fair, Meg ate her entire meal with chopsticks, and Sue used a fork! 

Thai Noodle Salad

Serves: 4
Source: “cool food”, Laurel Glen Publishing 2002

Dressing
2 T grated fresh ginger
2 T soy sauce
2 T sesame oil
1/3 c red wine vinegar
1 T sweet chili sauce
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/3 c kecap manis

1 lb. cooked jumbo shrimp
8 oz dried instant egg noodles
5 scallions, sliced diagonally
2 T chopped cilantro
1 red pepper, diced
¼ lb snow peas

For the dressing, whisk together the fresh ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, red wine vinegar, chili sauce, garlic, and kecap manis in a large bowl.

Peel the shrimp and gently pull out the dark vein from each shrimp back, starting at the head.  Cut each shrimp in half lengthwise.

Cook the egg noodles in a saucepan of boiling water for 2 minutes or until tender, then drain thoroughly.  Cool in a large bowl.

Add the dressing, shrimp, and remaining ingredients to the noodles and toss gently.  Can be served with lime wedges.

 

 

 And for dessert? Oh look, more mangoes!

 

Mango Madness Fruit Salad

Recipe developed by Sue & Meg For Saturday Night Specials 6/15/13

 

3 small kiwi, peeled and sliced
2 mangos, peeled and cubed
1 Asian pear, cored and cubed
2 cups strawberries, halved or quartered
1 ½ cups fresh pineapple chunks
4 mint leaves, thinly sliced
 

Dressing:
2 T lime juice
2 T agave nectar
1 T grated fresh ginger
Pinch of cardamom
 

Whisk dressing ingredients together and pour over the fruit. Stir to combine. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Our unsolicited and biased opinions:

We loved all of our new ingredients. The kecap manis tasted of molasses with an Asian edge and the sweet chili sauce was deliciously sweet and slightly spicy. We know that we will find other uses for both of them. Already we are thinking about barbeque sauce . . . .

The salad only needed half of the dressing. We can see stir fry or an Asian chicken salad in our futures.

Where you live (and cook) will determine the length of time needed to prepare the Asian egg noodles. At our high altitude it took slightly longer than the package directions. Like any pasta, test it for doneness.

This is yet another make ahead meal with picnic opportunities. If shrimp isn’t your thing, substitute a protein of your choice. Tofu marinated in this dressing would be great, too. There were no fresh snow peas in the market so we used sugar snap peas. 

Fresh fruit was the perfect ending for our mango madness. The lime juice, agave, ginger and cardamom enhanced each fruit and created a wonderful light syrup.

 Here's to good eating!

It’s a berry good start to summer . . . .

Berry bounty on Sue's hand made platter!

So Sue found this fresh blackberry martini recipe and stumbled onto a watercress and berry salad, and Meg bought a wonderful new dessert cookbook with corn ice cream and berry sauce. At that point all we needed to figure out was how many blackberries do we really need here; and maybe an entrée?
 
We can attest to the martinis being really good, even though we unintentionally left out an ingredient. See our unsolicited below.

Blackberry martini anyone?

Blackberry Martini
By Chef Kate on April 12, 2005
Food.com

• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Total Time: 35 mins
• Servings: 4

About This Recipe
"A little bit of effort, but amply rewarded. This was adapted by Jonathan Reynolds of the New York Times from "The Berry Bible." He prefers gin and so do I, but it's also awfully good with vodka. You'll have leftover simple syrup and berry puree, but I promise you, it won't go to waste. Cooking time is the estimate of how long it takes the syrup to cool."

Ingredients

For the Simple Syrup
o 1 cup sugar
o 1 cup water

For the berry puree

o 2 cups blackberries
o 1 tablespoon sugar
o 1/4 cup creme de cassis ( or berry brandy)

For the garnish

o 1 tablespoon superfine sugar
o 4 lemon wedges
For the Cocktail
o 1 cup gin ( or vodka)
o 2 tablespoons triple sec
o 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Directions

1. In a small saucepan, combine 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water.
2. Bring to a boil and stir until sugar is dissolved.
3. Remove from heat and cool.
4. In a food processor or blender, combine 1 tablespoon sugar, the berries and the cassis (or brandy) and process till smooth.
6. Rub the rims of 4 martini glasses with lemon. Spread the superfine sugar on a saucer.
7. Twirl the rims of the glasses in the sugar.
8. Place glasses in freezer.
9. Add gin (or vodka), Triple Sec, lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of the cooled simple syrup and 1/4 cup of the berry puree to a shaker filled with ice.
10. Shake vigorously.
11. Strain into chilled glasses and garnish with lemon and, if you like, a whole berry in each glass.
12. To quote Mr. Reynolds, "Serve immediately but sip slowly.".

Watercress in the wild grows in free flowing water, but we think the watercress that we found in the local market was grown hydroponically. The leaves  look different than wild watercress, but still have the spicy flavor we were looking for and they stayed fresher because of the attached root systems.

Watercress

Savory Berry-and-Watercress Salad
Recipe from the Tasting Table Test Kitchen
Yield: Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

Vinaigrette
3 tablespoons sherry vinegar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon granulated sugar
½ small red onion, thinly sliced

Salad
½ cup plain Greek-style yogurt
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
2 bunches watercress, ends trimmed
3 cups mixed berries

DIRECTIONS
1. Make the vinaigrette: In a medium bowl, whisk together the sherry vinegar, 1 tablespoon water, the salt and sugar. Add the onion and toss to combine. Set aside.
2. Make the salad: In a small bowl, whisk together the yogurt, 1 teaspoon olive oil and the honey and set aside.
3. In a large salad bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, dill and remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add the watercress and toss to coat. Add the berries and the onion mixture and gently toss to combine.
4. Place a dollop of the yogurt mixture on each of 4 plates. Top with some salad and serve.


Most of the components of this meal can be prepared ahead making it an impressive meal for guests with little same day prep. Think sitting back sipping that martini knowing that all you have to do is roast the salmon . . . 
We used Yukon Keta wild caught salmon from our local Raley’s supermarket. What a find and it was on sale! This is our first time eating this particular salmon and we really liked it. Here’s a link if you want to know more.

http://www.wildpacificsalmon.com/site/680079/PAGE/505886

We roast salmon frequently in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. Because of the size of the fillets, we reduced the time to 16 minutes. You really need to judge the time by the thickness of the salmon. We added fresh lemon zest strips before roasting and fresh herbs for plating. So good!

Yukon Keta wild caught salmon

Oven Roasted Salmon
Recipe developed by Sue & Meg For Saturday Night Specials 6/1/13

Ingredients

Salmon fillets
1 Tbsp. lemon zest strips
1 Tbsp. lemon thyme
2 Tbsp. flat leaf parsley leaves, chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put salmon skin side down on a parchment lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with lemon zest strips and salt and pepper. Roast for 15-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the salmon.

Before serving, sprinkle with fresh herbs.

Roasted salmon with Savory Berry and Watercress Salad

We chose a Castle Rock Pinot Noir from Mendocino County (northern California) to accompany the meal. The berry notes in the wine were a great match with the salmon and the salad.

Castle Rock Pinot Noir, 2010 about $9.00 on sale

Sweet Corn Ice Cream
with Blackberry Sauce

Makes: 1 quart ice cream
Source: “New Flavors for Desserts”, Williams Sonoma, Oxmoor House

4 ears fresh sweet corn
3 c half-and-half
1 c heavy cream, plus more as needed
2/3 c sugar, plus ½ c
pinch of salt
2 ½ pints blackberries
1 t fresh lemon juice

Remove the husks and silk from the corn.  Using a chefs’ knife, cut the kernels off the cobs.  Add the kernels and cobs to a large pot along with the half-and-half and cream.  Add the 2/3 c sugar and the salt and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Remove from the heat and let steep for at least 3 hours or up to overnight.  (If steeping for longer than 3 hours, refrigerate the mixture.)

Strain the corn mixture through a fine-mesh sieve.  Using your hands, wring out the cobs and press on the kernels with a spoon to extract as much liquid as possible; discard the cobs and kernels.  Measure the liquid; you should have about 3 cups.  If not, add more cream as needed.  Cover and refrigerate the corn-infused mixture for at least 3 hours or up to 8 hours.

In a nonreactive saucepan, bring the ½ c sugar and ¼ c water to a boil over medium-high heat.  Add 2 pints of the blackberries and stir to combine.  Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until the berries break down, about 8 minutes.  Transfer the mixture to a blender and add the lemon juice.  Puree the berry mixture then strain it through a fine-mesh sieve.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Freeze the chilled corn-infused mixture in an ice-cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions.  If desired, pack it into an airtight container and freeze until very firm.
To serve, scoop the ice cream into bowls, drizzle with the blackberry sauce, top with a few of the remaining blackberries, and serve right away.

Our unsolicited and biased opinions:

Sue made the simple syrup for the martini and then forgot to add it! We actually think that it was better without the added sweetness and would definitely not use it the next time around. Our blackberries were perfectly ripe, and the martini was so fresh. The little bit of lemon and sugar on the glass rim was a little touch of sweetness. By the way, we used vodka in our martinis.

Good to the last drop!

We substituted half of a shallot for the red onion in the salad. We also would recommend doubling the yogurt dressing (smear) if you are serving four people. We used all of the yogurt for two people. Having the yogurt on the side instead of in the salad is a wonderful opportunity to add it to each bite as you wish.

This ice cream is a bit labor intensive, but is definitely worth the effort. We made two changes to the procedures after the cobs and kernels had simmered and set the suggested times: the first was to scrape the cobs to extract all of their creamy goodness and add it to the pot prior to straining. The second was that after straining the liquid we put about ½ cup of the corn kernels at a time into cheese cloth and squeezed the “living tar” out of them, (actually cream and sugar, but you get the picture), until they yielded no more juice. We did not need to add any cream to get the three cups of liquid for the ice cream recipe. The remaining corn actually tasted pretty good and could go into a soup.

The berry mixture took a bit longer than the 8 minutes suggested in the recipe. The time will vary depending on your altitude and the firmness of the berries. Just keep an eye on the pot.

We know what you are thinking . . . . corn ice cream?? You get the essence of corn in a creamy ice cream.  The blackberry syrup takes it over the top. Really, try this. You’ll like it, a lot!

We are in berry bliss!