Trash Talk

I am not interested in your chocolate layer cake, your brownies or your doughnut, at all. But I will gladly take your anchovies. Or your sardines. I have spent this entire summer bingeing on taramosalata. Working out for an extra 10 minutes so I can reward myself with a handful of crackers, slathered, no, piled high, in salty, pink bliss. Quite simply, I love trashy fish.

We are headed to Monterey at the end of this month for our friends’ Danny and Kasia’s wedding. We are really looking forward to the wedding, wine tasting, a climate different than that of Venus, and the Eden that is California and its delicious food. Jim and I are somehow very lucky to travel to Northern California every late summer/fall and we wine taste and we eat too much and we laugh until we hurt and we drive windy roads and we look around at all the kooky flora and we truly relax. It’s a tradition I hope never ends.

So we are dreaming of our impending vacation. Yesterday Jim asked me if I had read this month’s Bon Appetit article about Monterey. I had not. He said he left the magazine open to the first page of the article. This morning I checked it out, first item on the menu - grilled sardines - yum. I really didn’t need to go any further. But it also said that since fresh sardines are rare in this country outside of this part of California, true, I have never seen them here, they had a cheat method for those without fresh sardines - a sardine dip instead. We were in luck! I had all the ingredients needed just downstairs.

Jim’s kids are good about eating. They aren’t too fussy and we don’t feed them kid food, (which in my opinion should be banned) they eat what we eat and they really enjoy it. Occasionally an item comes up that might be skeptical, like snails. Jim’s son wouldn’t touch them but his daughter popped three right in her mouth and smiled and said ‘yum!’ I’m not sure if she did this to irritate her brother or she genuinely liked them. I don’t care, she ate them. She also likes eel and ikura. Jim’s son was given a surprise this Sunday when I made a snack plate of various whats-its for visiting friends and he asked if he could have some. I made him a kid sized plate of what we were eating, he came back for more and my friend Jessica asked ‘How were the eggs? ‘What eggs?’ ‘The fish eggs.’ Frowny face. Taramosalata not so good all of a sudden. So I made the sardine dip last evening and I thought it was pretty good but Jim’s son told me and made a point to tell me how awesome he thought it was, again and again, and ate so many servings Jim had to tell him to stop before he ruined his dinner. And we told him it had sardines in it and everything was OK. Jim really liked it too.

Sardine Dip - Serves 4 as an appetizer - adapted from Bon Appetit

1 can boneless sardines packed in oil

2 tablespoons chopped Spanish onion

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

salt and pepper

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1 tablespoon olive oil

Combine the first five ingredients in a food processor, turn on, stream in oil and lemon juice, scrape down sides, turn on again. Serve with table water crackers.

Notes : Good with a dry white wine.

Taking Requests...

Everyone has a skill set and not-so-skilled set. In my bag of tricks I can boast that I am an excellent parallel parker; I can fit my behemoth 20 year old station wagon into spots fit for an MG and I can do it on the passenger side too. I can poach the heck out of an egg. And I can make a damn good salad. Really. And I have a formula for it but first let me prate on about what I don’t like about other salads for entertainment value.

Entree salads are different beasts than side salads (and many people would argue there is no such thing as an entree salad), so for the sake of this blog I’m going to stick to side salads. Things wrong with side salads: boring vegetables, insipid dressings distributed by a food conglomerate, or giant trophy leaves of lettuce that slide across the plate on to the tablecloth with everything else when you cut them, proving you are an uncouth heathen. How many times have you seen cherry tomatoes, cucumber, raw mushrooms and raw onion? What do you do with that cherry tomato? Bite it whole and let the seeds and juice gag you or shoot out of your mouth on to your fellow diner? Cut it in half like some OCD salad eater? The rest is just a snooze fest. There is very little creativity when it comes to salads out there. I really can’t argue that I’m more creative because I have a formula for creating a salad, but mine taste good.

I make salad dressing at least 3x a week; why I don’t make more than a day’s worth is not a question I can answer. I have several salad dressings I make, all based on the same theory. Recently a friend of mine requested that I post my everyday salad dressing on this blog. She wanted to shave a few pounds via salad for dinner and she wanted it to taste good. The thing is I don’t really know what goes in to it. Well, of course I know what goes into it, just not the proportions. So I have tried to make it several times and when I measure it it seems off. Normally I use my leftover jelly jars and pour the ingredients in, always in the same order, I can tell based on the level in the jar what is correct.

Now, for the salad, it goes like this: greens (I usually use a lettuce - bibb, green leaf, or recently, the very cheap Romaine or spinach or arugula), a chopped fresh herb (basil, cilantro, chives, mint, fennel fronds), fruit and a protein - either a nut (always toasted), cheese or meat or sometimes a combination. Next step, goody to leaf ratio. Honestly, you prefer the goodies (goodies = good) and the goodies are anything that is not leaf. My theory is it should be about a 65% greens, 35% goodies. Then there is the dressing. It shouldn’t be cloying or mask the flavor of your food; just like wine it should complement the salad.

I normally have these items on hand in some form or another. Usually it comes in scrap form, leftover from some other dish but not enough to make a real dish, whatever herb is floating around in my vase by the sink or in the herb garden. Nuts: buy them and store them in the freezer so they don’t become rancid, we always have pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, peanuts, pignoli... whatever. Fruit: again, whatever leftover; apple, orange, blackberry, strawberry and if you don’t have those may I suggest dried cranberries, dried blueberries or golden raisins? Seal them up and they will last in the pantry. Cheeses: shaved parm, chevre, blue, gruyere or sometimes, in our case, whatever leftover, bizarro, stinky cheese Jim has picked up on a whim. Meat: think pig or cured fish; prosciutto, Spanish chorizo, bacon, pancetta, smoked trout, smoked salmon. Seriously it’s like legos, pick one ingredient, grab another and start building.

So let’s try this a few ways. Arugula, chopped Navel orange, sliced fennel, toasted pecans and chopped fennel frond. Romaine, mint, chopped cantaloupe, goat cheese and prosciutto. Spinach, basil, golden raisins, blue cheese and walnuts. It’s easy and tasty. So pick your building blocks and lessgo.

Balsamic Vinaigrette - dresses 1 head of Romaine or a side salad for 4

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, the better, the better

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoons dijon mustard (I prefer old stand-by Grey Poupon)

1 teaspoon honey

1 garlic clove cut in half on the bias

Variations

1 teaspoon Herbs de Provence

1 teaspoon Orange zest

1 teaspoon Lemon zest

Put everything in a jar and shake, or a bowl and whisk. It is preferable to make it an hour or two before dinner and let the garlic flavor infuse, discard garlic before dressing the salad. I dress the salad, meaning only the greens and mixed in herbs, 5 minutes before serving, I put the goodies on top. Nuts, meat, fruits and cheeses do not need to be covered in dressing, and really, it effects their textures and ruins their colors.

Salad with Cantaloupe, Proscuitto and Goat Cheese - Serves 2-4

1 Heart Romaine (approximately 2 cups chopped)

1 1/2 ounces goat cheese - crumbled

1 ounce prosciutto - chopped

1/2 cup cantaloupe - chopped/cubed

Love Letter

This meal came back to me very clearly today while running and listening to an old play list. Years prior I remembered running to that song as I approached the corners of Gibson and Fulton Terrace and I just stopped running and I cried. I realized that I was quite hopelessly in love with Jim whether I wanted to be or not. Being in love is like having the most awesome secret in the world, it’s shiny, tingly and it’s warm and it’s all yours and it makes everything and everyone more enjoyable. But clearly overwhelming.

A few days or weeks later I was running, yet again, and I wondered what does falling in love look/taste like? What does it look like on a plate; what do I want to eat that can celebrate this emotion? The first part was easy; it popped right into my head: scallops. I don’t know why but apparently falling in love feels like pan seared scallops. Scallops with lentils, baked ones, not too soupy, and nothing too earthy to season them. Falling in love certainly has something green on the plate, but nothing bland, there is something zippy about falling in love. This was the hard part, finally after a few miles, I had it! Falling in love is pan seared scallops with basil oil, baked lentils and roasted asparagus with thyme gremolata. My friend Jayme called while I was preparing dinner for myself and asked what I was doing ‘I’m preparing an ‘I’m falling in love with Jim dinner.’ ‘Ooohhh, what’s in that?’ I told her the menu. ‘I hope he realizes how lucky he is.’

The funny thing is I have never made this meal for Jim. I’ve certainly made some parts of the sum. I should but....

While writing this down I decided that asparagus sounded like the perfect accompaniment for hot weather but I wanted it with steak. Right now, being in love feels like steak, steak Jim will cook. Hopefully one of those pampered, grass fed, manicured and massaged $25 steaks from the meat guy at the East Atlanta Farmers’ Market.

Shaved Asparagus with lemon and parmesan - serves 4 as a side dish

1 lb. asparagus, ends trimmed and shaved

1.5 ounces shaved parmesan

1 tablespoon olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

salt and pepper

Trim the ends of the asparagus and shave it with a paring knife. Heat oil in a pan add asparagus, saute for a minute and add in 1/2 lemon juice and 1/2 parsley, salt and pepper. Saute for another minute, remove from heat and toss with cheese and dress with remaining lemon juice and parsley.

Notes: Shaving asparagus is equal to peeling garlic or shrimp or husking corn in my mind as far as tedious kitchen chores are concerned. Hang in there, it’s worth it.

Bald P-Nuts

I loved my Grandpop, I just thought he was the best. My best memories about my Grandpop involve food. We ate our way through quite a lot, but I suspect it was genetics and a shared food crazed chromosome.

He had a fig tree (which is decadent to me). I’d show up in SC from Texas and I’d wake up to find Grandpop monitoring the squirrels in the fig tree. We’d go to chase them out and stand in the kitchen eating figs and drinking really awful coffee. It’s a fantastic memory. When he passed away two years ago, I knew that memory was the one I would miss the most.

We’d ride toward my aunt’s house on Yonge’s Island (crazy throw back dudes on the side of road selling the BIGGEST watermelons ever from their beat up 40 year old pick-ups). Grandpop would see them, he would get big eyes and he’d say “let’s pull over and talk to this man.” Then we’d leave with a COLOSSAL watermelon I was certain would pull our tail end down. When we got to my aunt’s house and cracked it open there was no question that it would be the best watermelon ever.

Oh... there was not a shrimp my Grandpop didn’t like; he could sit for several hours peeling and eating shrimp. When Parkinson’s prevented him from peeling shrimp my Aunt Barbara would sit patiently for hours, or so it seemed, and peel him shrimp. Grandpop would eat until her hands could peel no more and then I would peel them. Communicating was hard for him then but he would signal that he was sated by pushing back from the table, smiling very broadly and patting his stomach.

My first boiled peanut was with my Grandpop too. We went to the Pig one day, I had never seen a green peanut. There was a pack of people crowded around a produce stall furiously sifting, I asked Grandpop: “What is it? Why is it so popular?” “PEANUTS!” was the answer. “Get in there and get us some!” He pushed me through the crowd and I did as I was told: me, Grandpop and those other eight people shaking it out for the best peanuts. Turning the pile over looking and looking and turning again. I got in there, dug out the best ones I could find and we went home with a giant bag to boil up for the next few hours with more salt than you care to know about. Like chili, boiled peanuts are usually made by the truck load. My cousin Sonny has this problem solved; he freezes them in quart sized ziplocs - brilliant! He’s always ready to bring a side dish to a party and they never go to waste.

I have been watching the peanuts at the YDFM, they have been awfully small but this weekend I couldn’t take it anymore, they had at least ballooned up 3-4 small nuts per pod and that was good enough for me. I realize a boiled peanut recipe is not really a recipe, but at this time of the year, when I‘d normally be hanging with Grandpop cruising fried fish shacks on the road to Folly Beach it seems right.

Maybe you live somewhere where the side of the road “P-Nut” sign does not exist. They are the ultimate in road vittles so you must have some for your next road trip, jaunt to Grandma’s or next major couch sitting, beer swilling, sports game watching, unbridled salty snacking. They are certainly different than a roasted one most certainly more fun and slightly less messy. This is a smaller, less time-consuming batch.

Maryland Style Boiled Peanuts

1 lb. green peanuts

1/4 cup kosher salt

3/4 cup Old Bay

3 tablespoons tabasco

Put peanuts in a large pot and fill with water, bring to a boil; add the seasonings. When the pot reaches a boil, boil for 45 minutes - 1 hour. This amount of peanuts should not involve the need for refreshing the water in the pot but should the water evaporate, add more water. Cool and serve at room temperature.

Notes: I like my boiled peanuts not overly salty or mushy, salt and cooking time will need to be adjusted if you like yours “traditional”.

Slice of Orange

Vegetarians, love them or hate them, they are people too and they want a decent meal. As a former vegetarian I am going to speak for the group when I say we don’t want some lame sandwich with sprouts and lettuce, we don’t want a vegetable plate or a frozen veggie burger and we don’t want what you’re eating minus the meat. We want a creative, tasty, well balanced meal and we want to leave the table full too. I know, I know those damn fussy vegetarians, they won’t eat meat and then they come with a list of rules for what they are willing to eat???

Most vegetarians are foodies because they have to be. Being vegetarian certainly forces you to think about your food and what makes food structures and layers of flavors. I mean, really, you can put bacon in anything and it tastes good. For many years the vegetarian cook books were left to Anna Thomas and Molly Katzen. Anna was too earthy for me and I need pretty pictures in cookbooks. I had a Moosewood cookbook in college as well and, it had things in it like tofu Shepherd’s pie. Dishes like that that give vegetarianism a bad name. Then I found Rose Elliot. Rose produces beautiful, healthy, delicious vegetarian food.

Many dishes from Rose’s Complete Vegetarian Cookbook are standards in my repertoire. My copy is over 15 years old and I know she just released a new version of it, so I can’t speak to the new one but I have purchased two different versions of older ones and I can say I thought it was worth it to buy it two times.

I usually make this dish on Easter, in fact it’s a solid tradition. But the other day we had a ton of carrots in the house, not much else and if you are following the weather in the Southeast then you know it’s too hot for clothes or food. So I took my version of Rose’s carrot soup and I made a cold version.

Cold Carrot Ginger Soup with Basil – Serves 6

1-1.25 Lbs. carrots (about 5-6 medium) – peeled and sliced
1 medium Spanish onion – chopped
1 medium Russet potato – peeled and chopped
1-1 ½” piece of ginger peeled and grated
2 tablespoons butter
3 ½ cups vegetable stock or water
Salt and pepper
3 tablespoons Greek yogurt or sour cream
½ teaspoon honey
1-2 tablespoons basil – chopped

Sweat the onions in butter for 5-7 minutes until they are starting to become translucent, add in carrots and potatoes, sauté for about 10 minutes until the potatoes get slightly soft, add in ginger, salt and pepper, add in ½ of the stock, bring to a boil and let simmer for 20 minutes. Using a blender or immersion blender puree the soup, add in additional stock or water for desired consistency, add in honey. Chill the soup, add in yogurt and basil prior to serving.

Notes: This can easily be made vegan by using olive oil instead of butter, just be careful that the vegetables do not brown while sautéing them and omit the yogurt. I use a combination of stock and water to better control the sodium content.

C is for clafoutis

There are sweet people and savory people. I’m savory, maybe even a little salty. If given the option of a Swiss chocolate bar or a bowl of Spanish olives - I’ll take the olives please, oh and do you have any boquerones to go with them? I do have weak spot for ice cream and around here 80% of the time, if you don’t get your dessert in a stemmed goblet, it will be ice cream, hot fudge sundae, if you’re lucky.

But somehow I have developed the ability to make desserts starting with the letter C. Cupcakes, custards and anything with coconut. (Honestly, I do a blackberry trifle too but it bungles the alliteration.) I’m not half bad with cookies and cakes but all that measuring and rigidity and science is too much for me. I like the custards. I’m still trying to perfect a pudding recipe, specifically banana, so if you have one, please send it my way.

Like every year, in anticipation of Bastille Day I put together a French themed meal. Last night we had escargot, baguette, vichyssoise, salad nicoise and clafoutis. My goal was to blog about the snails, because they are really easy and inexpensive to make and everyone should do it, but they don’t photograph very well. I don’t usually make desserts and almost never eat them but I will make them for other people. My friend Jayme was coming over and she is my biggest clafoutis fan and it just fit with the theme. Normally, I make a pear one, courtesy of Ina Garten, since it’s not pear season I went with the traditional cherry. It was, if I do say so myself, my best one yet.

Cherry Clafoutis - Adapted from Ina Garten - Serves 6

• 4 large eggs (at room temperature)
• 1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar
• 6 tablespoons of flour
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 tablespoons Lillet (I just happened to have some in the fridge)
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1/2 pound of cherries, pitted
• 1 tablespoon butter

Butter a 12” pie plate then dust it with the tablespoon of sugar, set aside. Using an electric mixer combine the eggs and the sugar and beat on medium until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. With the mixer on low add in the flour, cream, zest, vanilla and Lillet, beat until combined, let batter rest for 10 minutes. Add the cherries to the pie plate, pour in batter and bake at 375 for 40 minutes or until the custard is set. Dust with powdered sugar, cut into wedges and serve.

Summer of Eggplant

We are beginning eggplant season so it’s time for an eggplant recipe. As a former vegetarian I am armed with an arsenal of eggplant recipes. I attempted to write the eggplant blog a few weeks ago using an old favorite but I stopped. The first eggplant recipe has to be one capable of changing people’s minds about this maligned fruit.

Like mayonnaise, people have very strong opinions about eggplant. I have many friends (and I can name you all) that profess to HATE (and I mean hatehatehate) eggplant; Jim’s brother-in-law claims he’s allergic to it. I’m not sure if it’s an allergy or a phobia. Even Jim, who will eat anything, including bugs, when I asked him a what foods he didn’t like said, ‘I don’t care for eggplant or brussels sprouts.‘ He eats both now and is enjoying them. So I know I can change someone’s mind. So while I was typing out my original eggplant recipe I said ‘Nope, the first one has got to be Kevin Rathbun’s Ya Ya Eggplant Fries’. Simply because they don’t taste or have the texture of eggplant. These things are, well, indescribable in a way that sounds appetizing, but I’m going to do my best. They are kind of like sublime eggplant doughnuts in french toast stick form with hot sauce and powdered sugar. Yes, they are good.

I Googled it and Rathbun’s has the recipe on their website. Lucky me. However I was skeptical, it seemed too easy. Really, I envisioned Kevin and Kirk performing some sort of eggplant voodoo in the kitchen to make it so fluffy and light on the inside. And what was the sauce, the hot sauce? Rathbun’s does not list it on their website. Someone on the internet speculated that it was simply Tabasco. I needed a trip up the street to taste test them from the source before committing to making them or blogging about them.

My custom at Rathbun’s to sit in the bar area and share a few appetizers rather than eat a full meal in the main dining room. We sat down and ordered drinks and discussed our options beyond the imminent eggplant fries. A few moments later a friend who works there came by to chat, she asked about my blog and I said the blog was the reason for our visit. (And Jim and I really deserved a date night.) I explained the eggplant situation and we talked about it and then she said ‘Oh wait, let me just go ask the guys in the kitchen.’ As Jim’s son would say ‘sweet victory.’ She returned and reiterated the recipe on the website, the fry temperature vacillated by 10 degrees, and, yes, it is Tabasco and no, they do not salt the eggplant before frying.

A couple changes or things we did not have and other bumps in the road. We didn’t have canola oil, we used corn; we didn’t have a fry-o-lator, we used a pan; I accidentally bought reduced fat buttermilk. The rest is basically the same. But it also produced an interesting litmus test. The kids usually eat eggplant in meatball form and love it. The point is they aren’t prejudiced against it yet. The powdered sugar certainly was an incentive to eat it. Jim’s daughter really enjoyed and expressed this by singing to it and asking for more, his son ate it, kind of, but not a home run. When we did the dishes and our geriatric dogs came begging I looked at the options and fed each of them a fry, they enjoyed it. One of those dogs recently turned her nose up to offerings of pepperoni pizza bones.

The result: ours weren’t as light and fluffy as Kevin’s, but they were close. Our favorites were the ones I double dipped in egg wash and bread crumbs. Let them sit for 10-15 minutes before serving, they remain lava hot for an extended period of time. So if you are willing to give eggplant another chance, try the fries.

Eggplant Fries - adapted from Kevin Rathbun - Serves 4-6

1 1lb. eggplant

2 cups bread crumbs

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

3 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

Oil for frying

Cut the eggplant in to 1 1/2” fries, leaving the skin (I trimmed the seeds off of several to make them uniform and rectangular). Combine the eggs and the buttermilk and make an egg wash. Combine the breadcrumbs and the cheese. Heat an inch of oil in a cast iron skillet to 350 degrees. Dip the fries into the egg wash and then the breadcrumbs, repeat, fry in batches for roughly 3 minutes until they are golden brown. I found 1 eggplant was equal to about 16 fries and I fried 5 at a time so as to not overcrowd the pan.