I'm Back!

We had a lovely vacation. A whole week, saturday to saturday on Anna Maria Island. We spent most of the time laying by the pool and watching the sunset on the beach. I poked around a few shops, got my annual souvenir from Ginny and Janey's and really relaxed.
This is a lovely "old Florida" beach town, established in the early 1900's. Most of the neighborhoods were established full on in the 60s, but there are a number of historic homes and sites on the small island. But having been vacationing there for abut 16 yrs, we have seen lots of development as well. Its to be expected. I remember when I lived in the keys, one of the things you heard a lot, was "everyone wants to be the last one there". Which is true. You want to get in and enjoy the place and then have all further development stop. It just doesn't work that way. But I will keep going and enjoying the amazing little place it is and if I ever win the lottery, I will buy in and hope I am the last one in. :)
We came home this morning. One thing that runs true in my family, we do not try to eek the last minute out of a vacation. When it is time to go, we are up and out! ASAP. Today was check out by 10am, we were out the door by 8. As soon as we woke up and got the car packed, we were headed home. We would have headed home last night if we had thought of it before a few beers.
But we are home today and my sweet Dad brought me some beautiful steaks so I didn't have to go to the store. I did end up running out and getting some potatoes to bake.
Last week my dad brought me some blue cheese. So tonight I made some Blue Cheese dressing and had a wedge salad. Then we fired up the little grill, put the steaks on and baked a couple of potatoes. David has some seasoning called Citizen Kane, (from a famous St Louis restaurant) and we sprinkled that on the meat.
What a delicious and simple meal. Perfect for the first day back from vacation.
I will be back in the kitchen this week. So stay tuned. One thing I can't get out of my head is some fries we got at a restaurant called 'Eat Here'. French fries with gravy and parmesan cheese. Oh My!! I may have to come up with those for my dad this week. Maybe I can get him to eat more than a few bites.

Cooking, cooking, cooking

So many things to cook!! How do I love cooking? Let me count the ways...
I love:  the prep, the ceremony, the ritual, the sacredness, the emotion, the meaning, the flavors, the combining, the mixing, the experimenting, the creating, the eating, the eating, the eating!!
Really, I do love so much about it. I love how things are intrinsic to where they come from. How wheat tastes like the water that it is near, how coffee has notes from the trees that shade it, how juniper tastes, how honey tastes like flowers the bees pollenate. I love how chinese food has so much meaning, how it can be made from one thing to look like another, how french food just oozes romance.
When I can take a handful of ingredients and transfom it into delicious textures and flavors, I feel on top of the world!
So, this evening, I took some regular old salad veggies, some regular old egg, some flour and POW! Next thing I know, Radish Fritters! OMG! So delicious. There was a couple of other ingredients, not the least of which was my super excellent curry powder (home made, toasted and ground). Boy those fritters were incredible. David really liked them. I think it was our first meatless meal! Along with some radish and cucumber raita, for a cooling contrast. Yummy!
After dinner, I needed to make something to take to work tomorrow. We have created a small potluck group. We all want to fix things that our families wouldn't care for, so we created a group to cook for.  I have been wanting to make Farro, a whole grain I have been reading about. So I made a farro and white bean mashup. Leeks, garlic, olive oil, farro and cannelini beans. And the bright splash of Lemon zest.
Yes, this was a good night of cooking. I will post the recipes a little later this week, with my photos. Stay tuned!

Summer dreams of fall

Fall is my favorite time of year. Summer has always just been something to be tolerated until fall came along. Then the holidays are afoot and the weather becomes wonderful and the next six months are just a pleasure! As I get older, it seems silly not to enjoy every time of year. Each season has so much to offer. There are many summer fruits I revel in. Berries & cherries are made for baking, and figs?? Come on, food of the gods. Now, there are some summer fruits I just can't enjoy. Stone fruits are not to my taste. And melon, seems a waste, but they are not at all appealing. But none the less, the berries and summer squash are nothing to sneer at. So I have started taking advantage of the great pricing, by freezing the berries. I will have them later in the year when I need a perk to muffins and breads. I am trying all kinds of fritters, radish and yellow squash having starring roles in these. I will post more detail later this week.
I do really enjoy the beach and pool in the summer, and healthful or not I still love getting my summer tan! I love the way my yard gets so lush in july and august. I also love the afternoon showers florida is notorious for in hurricane season. I certainly hope we do not have to worry about hurricane warnings, those are no fun! But summer still has an awful lot to offer. And I crave lost of fresh seafood in the summer. Mussels, shrimp and crab. We have begun a tradition of renting a beach house in Anna Maria in the summer, that is really something to look forward to. And the local shops with their amazing oils and cheeses and breads have taken on a very seasonal feel for me.
All in all, I try to look forward to each and every day, summer, fall or winter. But I can't help that fall is my favorite. The idea of kids going back to school, and pumpkins in the markets with the winter squashes (Sweet Dumpling, how do I love thee, let me count the ways) and indian corn. Mmmmmmm. I am a fool for fall.

Poblanos, get to know them.

I had started a post about this recipe, which I made last sunday. I had gotten the whole thing down and was just checking my spelling and all, when I hit the wrong button and lost the whole post. I admit, it scarred me. I was blog shy for a week. But I am over it now. I didn't do a lot of cooking this pat week, but I did a few other things. I will go ahead and re-create the pobalno post here.
I made some stuffed poblano peppers. That was kind of strange, because I had seen a movie about Paris, and read a book about Appalachia. I tend to follow a theme when I enjoy a movie or when I read a book.
It would follow that I would create a french meal after "Midnight in Paris" (which I LOVED!).
Or after finishing the book about the mountains of VA, why not create a stick to your ribs meal with biscuits or cornbread. But I didn't. All I could think was mexican.
 I love Poblano peppers. The flavor is just wonderful. I had stuffed them with polenta before, but if I wanted David to eat them, I would have to do better than that. I decided to fill them as I would chicken enchiladas. I have a very easy mix up I created that uses rotisserie chicken. Its a great fast weeknight meal.
But I still wanted that cornmeal flavor, some how...
I decided to bread them in cornmeal. In order to get the breading to adhere, you MUST blister off the skin first. So, here is what I did:
I placed the poblano peppers (6 small ) on a cookie sheet under the broiler. turning as the skin bubbled up. Once they were fully blistered, I put them in a bowl and covered it with plastic wrap and set it aside.
Then I took the rotisserie chicken and cut it up into a small dice. I mixed it in a bowl with enchilada sauce, shredded cheese, onions jalapenos and chopped When removed from the covered bowl, they were cool enough to handle. I peeled the skin off, now the cornmeal would stick. So I did the dry wet dry sequence. Flour/ egg wash/ cornmeal. Then I fried them. Now we get to the part I would do different next time.
What I DID do, was to fry with the coating, then drain and slice open and remove seeds and stems. I stuffed them with the chicken mixture and baked them with a little cheese on top, at 350 for about 20 mins.
What I WOULD  do next time is this:
I would remove the skin as before, then pull out the stem and seeds leaving the whole pepper intact. Then I would fill the pepper with the chicken mix. Next I would bread it (dry wet dry) and do the frying at that time, no baking.
Served with a creamy avocado sauce or guacamole would be the finishing touch. (besides a fresh squeezed margarita.)
These stuffed peppers were really good. Poblanos are so delicious, its hard to mess them up. But they should be cooked first, the heat really brings out the best in it.
Try them for yourself. If you are a fan of mexican food, you will love the smoky, sultry, slightly spicy taste of this wonderful veggie.

Hmmmmm....

I started out tonight, thinking I would write about the evolution of cooking and cookbooks. About the way people are using foods differently and working with different cooking styles. I was looking through an old Betty Crocker cookbook, circa about 1961, for a prime example. I have had this cookbook for at 20 years at least. My mom had given it to me. I have certainly been through this book before. Flipped through pages, looked things up and have made the biscuits many times over. BUT, tonight, I found notes that my mom had made on some pages. I have never in all these years seen these notes. It is hard to describe chancing upon someone's handwriting when you don't expect it. She wanted to try the poppy seed noodles with the beef stroganoff. She swapped stewed tomatoes for tomato paste. And she really wanted to try the 'Holiday Spaghetti'.  What this really brings to light, is that while chefs and cookbooks continue to evolve, there are things about us as cooks that never change: The desire to continue to learn and experiment and make new combinations. We always think, what if I try this with that?? How will that taste? Mom was thinking about it with her poppy noodles and stroganoff and I was thinking it when I mixed the cherry salsa and the charred corn salad today at lunch.
My mom has been gone for 17 yrs. I am so grateful she left those little notes for me. To remind me who I come from and why I love cooking the way I do.
And I do love it.
Tonight I loved it on the grill. I loved it when I mixed blue cheese and parsley and garlic and stuffed tomatoes and cooked them on the grill. I also loved it when I grilled some beet slices and topped them with a hazelnut and orange gremolata (a chopped herb condiment typically made of garlic, parsley, and lemon zest.) I really loved it when I sat down and ate them! My dad even loved the tomatoes. The beets, not so much. But he tried them. Its summer, use the grill every chance you get. Use it with these recipes...

Grilled Stuffed Tomatoes Adapted from; Fire it up. 
1 Poblana Pepper
4 medium Ripe Tomatoes
1 clove Garlic
3 ounces Blue Cheese
2T Butter
2T Olive Oil
1/4 Parmesan Cheese
1 Green Onion Chopped
3 T Flat Leaf Parsely
1/4C Pine Nuts
S & P


Roast the poblano pepper. Seed and chop. Remove core of tomatoes, sprinkle with S & P. 
In a food processor combine poblano, garlic, blue cheese, butter, olive oil, parmesan, oinion, and parsley. Pulse to combine, it can be chunky. Put mixture into a bowl and stir in pine nuts. 
Fill tomatoes with the stuffing, and mound on top. Place on hot grill for 6 to 8 minutes. Serve warm.


Grilled Beets with Orange Hazelnut Gremolata Adapted from: Fire it up
Beets: 4 sliced (1/4 inch thick)
Olive oil
S & P


Gremolata
1 clove Garlic
1T Flat Leaf Parsley
1 T Fresh Mint
Zest from one Orange
1 T Hazelnuts
Pinch of Sugar
S & P


For Gremolata pulse all ingredients, set aside. 
Grill beets on hot grill for 4- 5, remove and plate, top with gremolata. 


Be warned, this is a heavy garlic meal.




Ok, now I have to go scour every page of that cookbook and see if I can find anymore notes. :)

Red White and Blue (ok, just red)

Happy Birthday USA! It's July already! How about that? July 4th always feels like the mid point of summer. In fact Joann Fabrics had the pumpkins out already for september. I LOVE TO SEE THAT. Fall being my favorite season. But, back to July, I have come to enjoy summer more now. Since the time I got out of school, summer always seemed like something to get through until fall made its way back around. But as you get older you realize you better enjoy every day, not just "get through them" because they fly by quick enough as it is. So I try to eek out a decent tan while enjoying the beach, (yes I still love the bake) and otherwise enjoy air condtioned activities. And really, it is a nice quiet time in FL that you don't have to fight crowds and traffic, that is worth getting out for.
As for Independence day, I am a staunch patriot, and a firm supporter of the ideals of this country. With hat being said, I have to admit, the main thing I like about the 4th is a day off. I do not like fireworks displays because that means big crowds of people, and hot muggy weather. I do, however, like to commemorate the holiday with an appropriately festive meal. Today I used the extra day off to do some meal prep for the week ahead as well.
I was excited to see a recipe in the St Pete times, (they took it from a book called 'Fire it Up') for a cherry salsa with pork tenderloin.
Cherry Salsa?? WOW! That sounds all american and red and festive. I realize salsa is Mexican, but we have managed to Americanize it to the point that it is ubiquitous, so to make it from Cherries? All American in my opinion. The pork was marinated in cilantro and lime for the most part, The slasa had all the usual suspects except tomatoes. That's where the cherries come in. Cherries, Jalapeno, Cilantro, Lime juice. Does that not sound soo good?? Of course it does! Well, in all honesty, David didn't think so, but I was committed.
I first made the salsa so the flavors had plenty of time to marry. Then I did the marinated pork tenderloin and put it on the grill.
Let me just say, David and I both really enjoyed it. The salsa, while not sweet, was a bit fruity,  the cilantro and the other ingredients kept it from seeming like a dessert. I loved mixing those cherries in with our dinner. It was such a Summer/ July luxurious meal, and was so very simple and tasty. I am always so thrilled when David is skeptical  of my dinner plan, but becomes an enthusiastic participant. Trust me, there are times when it doesn't go that well, so when it does, I relish it.
The newspaper had some more of the recipes from that book, and they are on tap for later this week, stay tuned. Meanwhile check out the cherry salsa and try it one night this week. It will feel like a special meal, I promise. Fire works will go off, you'll see.

As adapted from the St Pete Times from the cook book "Fire it Up":
GRILLED PORK TENDERLOIN w/ CHERRY SALSA
Pork Marinade
1/2 C Chopped Cilantro
1/4 C Minced Shallots*
4T Lime Juice
1/4C Vegetable Oil
2- Pork Tenderloins, about 2 1/2 lbs total.
Place first four ingredients in a large plastic bag to combine, then add tenderloins. Marinate 15- 20 mins or up to overnight.
Cherry Salsa
1/2 C Cilantro
1/4 C Shallots*
2 T Lime Juice
1/2 lb fresh Cherries, pitted and halved
1 fresh Jalapeno, thinly sliced
1 T Olive Oil
S & P
Combine all ingredients.

Grill the pork and serve with cherry salsa.
I also served some grilled romaine, my favorite salad these days.
* I used mild vidalia onions, instead of shallots.

Seasonings and Seasons

I was reminiscing on my early days in the kitchen. When I first became interested in cooking, about 26 years ago, fresh was not the mainstream it is today. I think back specifically to the spices and seasonings. Back then, a woman woman that lived in the same apartments as my mom, was moving and offered me an impressive array of spices in jars and tins. I was so excited. Many I had never heard of. Being as the Internet was not available,  I often times had to wait until I stumbled across one of those ingredients in a cook book. Not surprisingly, I held onto many of those containers for WAY too long. Once I learned that dried spices don't last forever, I had a mostly empty cabinet. These days there are obviously many jarred seasonings that are necessary. I couldn't make my favorite curries without them. (Although I do use my fry pan and spice grinder to make sure I get everything I can out of them.)
But the main thing I have learned is FRESH ingredients can really make or break a dish. The produce section at Publix is where I spend the bulk of my grocery budget today. And the specialty stores get their share of my paycheck too. The flip side to shopping for fresh herbs (Martha tells us to pronounce the 'H') and spices is cooking seasonally and locally whenever possible. The food section in your local paper is a great source for seasonal recipes, and of course there are a gazillion websites that you can find info on how to shop and cook with only seasonal foods. And it makes sense to do so. In this age of hot house veggies, there is a reason food ripens at certain times of year, in tune with the earth and the skies and the elements. In keeping with seasonal foods we are in keeping with the cycles of mother nature and I believe our bodies work better when we follow these rhythms.

All this comes from the fact that FIGS are back on the shelves! I will enjoy a dried fig for sure, during the winter onths,  with a delightful caramelized goat cheese. But when they appear in the summer time, ALLELUJAH! I have just enjoyed a few of the fresh beauties with some blue cheese. the one and only problem with fresh fruits is how quickly they turn on you. One minute they are juicy and sassy and luring you in, and seemingly within seconds, they have become haggard and moldy. *sigh*. Thats why we roast. :)
I am about to roast my figs with thyme and wine and honey. I am pretty excited. This will squeeze at least another 7 days out of my figs. I will get a pic and post tomorrow. As it turns out, I forgot to get fresh Thyme today at the store. :(