It's no Motorino, but Birch and Barley does a nice summer veggie pizza!

Thai Sorbet

For the last few weeks, I've been getting a lot of Thai basil from my CSA. Loving Thai food, and basil generally, this has not proven to be a problem for me. However, this bounty has also had me considering some less conventional ways to use this basil, too!

Since I like sorbets, and the weather has been ridiculously hot, it seemed like the right experiment to try. I thought basil alone might be a little bland, so sought out some lemongrass too. Little did I know that finding it would be so difficult! I've seen it in my local grocery store a number of times, but now that I was looking for it...well, it just wasn't there! I finally went to a Whole Foods, where I bought the last lemongrass they had. Maybe there's a run on it, or a worldwide shortage, and I just didn't know!

I took to the basil and lemongrass, slicing and chopping a little, crushing some others, and generally trying to get both the tender basil leaves and the hardy lemongrass stalks to open up to release their flavors.

I put all the basil and lemongrass into a saucepan with about two cups of water and put it on to boil, then reduced it to simmer. This part is like making tea, and allowing it to steep! Once it had boiled and then simmered for about 10 minutes, I added a bit of sugar. I didn't want it to be so sweet as to overpower the subtle lemongrass and basil, but it did need some sugar to help it become something other than tea-colored ice cubes! (Nerdy science fact: adding sugar to water turns it into a different substance, obviously, but it also lowers the freezing point, which is why you get a soft freeze that you can eat with a spoon, instead of a block of ice.)

I simmered for another 10 minutes, then let the entire mixture cool, steeping the entire time. When it had cooled, I strained the mixture, added in a couple small, whole basil leaves, and put it in a container in the fridge. The best part about sorbets is this natural stopping point - I do not have to freeze it that night!

The next night, I pulled out the mixture, which is a little sweet, and very fragrant with herbal notes. I poured it into my trust ice cream freezer, and let it whir. Because it has a little less sugar, it took a little less time to freeze up, but I let it continue to spin to achieve a creamy consistency.

I can admit that I am biased in favor of my own cooking, but this truly was lovely - flavorful but restrained, cool and creamy, and just plain good!

Indian-Spiced Vegetables

My fabulous sister-in-law knows I am a sucker for cookbooks, so last time I saw her she showed up with THREE for my reading pleasure.  One of them was an Indian cookbook.  In flipping through it, I saw some lovely recipes for fresh vegetables, simply sauteed or pan-seared with a strong flavor profile.  

While I eat Indian food sometimes, I do not cook with those flavors often.  It was a simple approach to vegetables with some flavors I knew I would enjoy.  I chopped my eggplant and squash, and then got to cooking.  First, some cumin is toasted lightly in some oil in a very hot pan.  Then the vegetables are added to the spicy oil and cooked for a few minutes - with an occasional turn of the veggies.  You can stir some, but you get a nicer sear on the veggies, and some darker marks, if you let it sit some.  Once those veggies were cooked through, I added some freshly diced pepper, some turmeric and some salt.  A few more minutes of stirring, and the lovely, fragrant and richly flavored vegetables were ready for my dinner!

Lobo Date

Mmm... Lobster roll in New England!

On Friday I had a lobster date - I had a lobster roll at Red Hill Dari in Center Harbor, New Hampshire!

Motorino

Pizza at Motorino in Brooklyn!

Winning Produce

My most recent haul from the CSA brought in lots of  the usual goodies - tomatoes, Thai and Italian basils, zucchini, squash, eggplant, potatoes, garlic and peppers.  

This garlic really is phenomenal - I'm planning to roast a head of it to make some garlic butter - perhaps I'll freeze that to bring me the flavors in the winter.

This week also brought, of course, more peaches!  Every week I keep looking at them, thinking "I'll try a new recipe with the peaches this week."  And every week, I simply cut them up and eat them just as they are.  They've been wonderful with no additions at all.

This week I also got a few more tomatoes, and combined them with a couple more for a slow roast.  I simply cut them in half, sprinkled them with olive oil, salt, a little thyme and a smidgen of sugar and put them in a hot roasting oven.  Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express includes a recipe for what she calls "Moonblush Tomatoes" that she puts in a very hot oven right before bed, and then turns off the oven and leaves the tomatoes in the oven overnight as it cools.  I'm a fan of her methods, and while I toy with the ratios in her recipe, it offers a nice flavor profile.

These tomatoes are slightly roasted, and get just a bit wrinkly as the flavors are concentrated.  I love eating them on their own, but they also make great additions to salads, and are wonderful sauteed a bit and put over pasta.  This is just a generally fantastic way to enjoy some tomatoes!

Ground Cherries, Take 2

A week or so ago I got some ground cherries from my CSA.  I've never eaten one before, much less cooked with them!  I did a bit of research, but unfortunately it appeared that most recipes were for muffins, and a couple for pies.  I didn't have enough for a pie, and muffins seemed as though they'd disguise the true flavor of the fruit - something I did not want for my first adventure with ground cherries.

In the end, I simply peeled the papery skins away from the berry-like golden orbs, and ate them. Mmm...

Do You Have Any Grey Poupon?

While there may be Grey Poupon in my fridge, my biggest fascination (hence the bad joke) is with the mustard greens I got this week. I've never cooked with them before, so I did a little reading!

In the end, I washed my greens well, added them and a little water to a saute pan, and put it over heat. I added a shake of sea salt, covered the pan, and let it go to town over medium to medium-high heat for about 18 minutes...

And then I ate these greens. They were so good, I only wish I'd had more!

Tortilla Espanola

In concept, a tortilla espanola is a Spanish-style egg dish, similar to a frittata, that has potatoes and onions in it. I understand this very well! This time around, I got all the flavors there, but it wasn't pretty.

I started by cutting and boiling the potatoes - they wouldn't cook enough if put into the egg mixture raw! I also chopped some red onion and sauteed it in some oil.

Once the potatoes and onions were ready to go, I cracked open a bunch of eggs, stirred them together, and added in the potatoes and most of the onion. When my bowl of eggy goodness was combined, I heated some oil in a saute pan and then added the egg and veggie mixture and cooked it over medium heat for 10 minutes.

My troubles began at the 10 minutes cooking mark - when I tried to loosen the tortilla from the pan to flip it. Parts of it came away easily, and some parts stuck like crazy. I ended up not being able to flip it well, so it never looked lovely. I simply cooked the parts of it through to doneness.

While it was NOT pretty at all, the flavors were there. This is a fun dish, because once it's cooked you can let it sit - it is actually meant to be eaten at room temperature. I let mine cool a little while I made myself a side dish.

I also had some young broccoli, so I added that to the saute pan with the remaining onions. I added a little bit more oil and some crushed red pepper flakes, and sauteed the broccoli for a few minutes until the green became more vibrant.

This bright color, contrasted with the muted tones of the tortilla espanola, made a lovely plate - and a yummy dinner.

Dinner - tortilla Espanola and broccoli with onions