Simple, Bright, Fresh, Hot Summer's Day Dinner

Friends, family, readers. I know, it's been a minute. But I've been busy cooking a TINY HUMAN (coming soon!) so it is what it is, y'all.

Things have been busy in preparation: we acquired a chest freezer, for one thing, so there's been a lot of freezer loading happening in hopes of not subsisting on takeout in the beginning. TBD how well it will all work out - but rest assured I'll [try to] keep you posted. It's gardening season, too, and things are hopping out on Deck MiniFarm. I was hoping everything would be pretty well established before the Munchkin makes his or her appearance, but things are kind of neck and neck at this point. More on that in another post. 

For today's deliciousness: a legit warm-weather recipe! At no point do you turn on the oven or the stovetop! (Well, assuming you have some grilling access. If not the stovetop might be needed. Sorry.)

I made gazpacho last night - first time making it, first time making a non-beverage in the Vitamix, and...first time using those tomatoes I canned last summer. (Did I tell you about those? It was kind of a debacle involving a severely overheated kitchen and possibly some loss of product due to paranoia about things not being fully blanched before going in a jar. This summer's excess is getting frozen.) 

Anyway -- it was delicious! Also since nobody got sick from the tomatoes, which were not re-heated in the making of gazpacho, I guess the canning worked too. I paired it with marinated grilled skirt steak skewers (recipe below), and all was well. This particular gazpacho is of the smoother variety, not so chunky -- possibly due to my particular tomatoes + equipment. But I imagine it could easily be adjusted for chunkiness. 

** No photos because....we ate it all too fast. **

The whole thing was super easy -- chop things up and stick them in the fridge for a bit, and quickly blend and grill. The sitting-in-in-the-fridge means that this is probably not everyone's weeknight dinner unless you work from home or get home at a reasonable hour, but it's a fresh and bright weekend meal for a hot summer day. The gazpacho really benefits from a good hour in the fridge, and the skewers marinate for at LEAST 30 minutes. So I guess you could make the marinade and chop the veggies the night before. 

For the apparatus: Having a Vitamix made this incredibly easy. You could also, I imagine, use a food processor (a large one), or another brand of powerful/quality blender, or possibly even a stick blender with the right container, although that might be tricky. Either way, experiment! 

Fresh Tomato Gazpacho (in a Vitamix or similar contraption)

Via Dadcooksdinner.com

Ingredients

• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• 2 large bell peppers, cored and seeded
• 1 small cucumber
• 1/2 medium red onion
• 2 pounds ripe tomatoes, cored [*Note from your blogger: I used about 4 pint jars of tomatoes, semi-drained as they had quite a lot of liquid in them. An alternate is a 28oz can of diced tomatoes, the higher quality the better, but generall skip the bland supermarket "fresh" tomatoes - they will be seriously lacking in flavor.*]
• 1/4 cup sherry vinegar [*Red wine vinegar is what I had - worked fine.*]
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon pimenton de la vera (Spanish smoked paprika), or sweet paprika [I had Hungarian sweet or spicy, no smoked, so went with sweet]
• minced red onion for garnish [I forgot this...it still worked. Could also use fresh minced radish for the crunch & bite.]

Directions

1. Mince the garlic, prep the vegetables

Put the lid on the blender and remove the center plug from the lid. Turn on the blender, drop in the garlic, and let it run until completely minced. While the garlic is mincing, chop the rest of the vegetables into roughly 2 inch pieces.

2. Blend the soup

Add the rest of the ingredients to the blender. Turn the blender on low, and gradually bring it up to medium speed. Blend on medium speed until the ingredients turn into a soup, about 30 seconds at most in the Vitamix - it will liquify quickly and you don't want it TOO thin. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt, pepper, or sherry vinegar if needed. Pour into bowls, garnish with minced red onion, and serve. 

Important note: If you have time, let the soup rest in the refrigerator for an hour or two before serving. This is vastly improved when quite chilled.

Leftovers will keep for a couple of days in the refrigerator. Alternately, due to the lack of bread or dairy that are sometimes found in gazpacho, this should freeze fine -- just give it a good stir, possibly whisk, when defrosted. 

Play with this recipe a bit! I think it would be tasty with maybe some corn kernels thrown in at the end, or garnished with a protein like some shrimp. There's a lot of room for creativity. 

Grilled Skirt Steak Skewers

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1-inch piece of ginger, sliced [*I didn't have fresh, or even dried, so used powdered. It was fine - if you love ginger, though, making sure to have fresh is probably wise.*]
• 1/2 teaspoon red chili pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 to 2 pounds skirt steak, trimmed of membranes and silver skin [*Note: you can adjust this -- I used about 3/4 lb since it was just for two of us. I didn't adjust the marinade proportions accordingly, but you certainly can.*]
• Olive oil for grill grates
• 25-30 bamboo or wooden skewers for grilling [*I have metal ones that I use and they're fine - just don't try to marinate on them!*]

Directions

1. Place bamboo or wooden skewers in a dish, cover with water to soak.

2. Place all marinade ingredients in a small bowl, stir to combine. Set aside.

3. Lay the skirt steak horizontally out on a cutting board. Notice the grain of the steak that goes up and down. Cut the steak into segments (along the grain of the meat), about 6 to 8-inches long. Then, with each segment, turn the segment so the grain of the meat runs in a line from left to right, and cut thin strips (1/4 to 1/3-inch thick, 1 1/2-inch wide, 6 to 8-inches long), angling the knife, cutting across the grain. [*I can't say I really followed this religiously - I just cut at an angle once. It was fine. You can be as careful as you see fit.*]

4. Place the steak slices in a non-reactive bowl or dish. Toss with the marinade to coat. Chill and marinate for at least 30 minutes, up to 2 hours.

5. Preheat your grill, whether charcoal or gas, for high-direct heat. While the grill is preheating, thread the marinated skirt steak strips onto your pre-soaked skewers.

6. When ready to grill, brush the grill grates with olive oil (it helps to fold a paper towel, soak the towel in olive oil, and use long handled tongs to hold the soaked paper towel and spread oil on the grates). Working in batches if necessary, lay the skirt steak skewers on the hot grill grates, perpendicular to the grates. Grill for 3 to 4 minutes per side, until cooked through. Remove from grill and let sit for a few minutes before serving.

Return of the Cook

It was a little chilly this past weekend, y'all. It had that snap, that bite, that autumnness about it. I love new seasons and particularly am fond of fall. I mentioned last time that we've had a great grilling season and so many peaceful nights on the back deck, but I miss COOKING. So I kicked off the chill in the air with an impulse-cake, a spontaneously made applesauce spice cake. I have this bundt pan that I acquired, probably at a yard sale, for roughly $1, and every so often the big, heavy, 1978-mustard-yellow thing must be used. So, here we are.

It's not super-apple-y but even still seemed the right thing to make on Rosh Hashanah. I took a recipe and tweaked it a few times over, so it's kind a "choose-your-own-ending" sort of cake (for example, it would be just fine if you skipped the nuts). It's not an extremely sweet cake, which was sort of intentional. I opted not to glaze it, but if you're looking for something very dessert-y you might want to do so. I don't have an enormous sweet tooth and prefer the delicate dusting of confectioners' sugar - plus it looks pretty, y'all. (If you do that, I suggest putting some plastic wrap under the cooling rack to catch all the extra sugar.)

As I mentioned it's not really apple-y, so if you arrived here looking for an apple cake - you can just chop up an apple and mix it in. I encourage Pink Lady apples in baking, but Granny Smith or Honeycrisp would work well too.

Autumn Kickoff Cake

1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 1/2 cups applesauce

[*Note: my applesauce was really excessively sugary, which is what made me look for a recipe in the first place - so I reduced the sugar to 1/3 cup of white and 1/3 cup of brown. Adjust per your preferences.*]

1 cup vegetable oil [*I ran out and used half olive oil, which is healthier anyway - can't taste a difference at all.*]
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans [*Important: not huge chunks! They'll overwhelm.*]
sifted confectioners' sugar or vanilla glaze (recipe below)

Lightly butter and flour a bundt pan or a loaf pan.

In a large mixing bowl, beat sugar, applesauce, oil, eggs, and vanilla until smooth. Stir in flour, soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg until well blended. Stir in chopped walnuts or pecans (and apple(s) if using). Pour batter into prepared bundt pan or loaf pan. Bake at 350° for 45 to 55 minutes, or until a wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool cake for 10 minutes in pan on rack. Remove from pan and cool completely on rack. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar or drizzle with vanilla glaze.

Vanilla Glaze  
(courtesy southernfood.about.com)

2 cups confectioners' sugar, sift before measuring
1 1/2 tablespoons butter, soft
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 to 4 tablespoons milk

Combine all icing ingredients in small mixing bowl. Stir until smooth and well blended. Adjust for spreading consistency if necessary, adding more milk or more confectioners' sugar. Spread icing or drizzle on warm cookies, Bundt cake, or pound cake.

One Last Grill

Friends,

Hello again. The summer is winding down - technically, by the Jersey Shore calendar, it's over already, and the 49 degrees it was when I woke up this morning attests to that. It's been a lovely summer of grilling and growing, but I'm ready for cooking season. "Cooking season?" you say. Yes indeed, readers. The oven goes dormant from late May through, well, about now. So much grilled deliciousness this summer, mostly done be EPH but a little here and there by me.

Which reminds me - did I ever talk to you about the brining of everything else? During one of EPH's trips I felt like grilling, and in a fit of health had purchased skinless boneless chicken breasts. These are not something I generally have on hand as I feel they are generally bland and flavorless. But then somebody said something about brining them, I gave it a try, and just like that -- chicken breasts redeemed! The only lingering question is WHY didn't I do this before???

Why you gotta bug me?

If you're a gardener, by this time in the summer you're probably hitting some pest or illness issues of one variety or another. So far this summer I've dealt with aphids, yellowing leaves on the tomatoes, and Japanese beetles - and dealt with each one with various things I had on hand, no chemicals needed. 

Greetings from the Deck Farm

Time for a garden update! Things are growing along nicely, and each thing is its own little surprise. For one thing, who would have thought that the corn would be the easiest and lowest maintenance?? I have ears coming out now, and while I don't think it's going to be a super high yield (I have seven ears at the moment, assuming all come out in good shape), it's been a fun experiment. 

My zucchini has finally hit its stride -- it had some issues early on and needed various TLC (more on that in the next entry) but now I'm harvesting at the rate of about 3 to 4 per week. Good thing we like zucchini!! 

 

Harvest Season!

So it's been two weeks....and all of the sudden, I have a full blown zucchini that we'll eat with dinner tonight, and four more blossoms popped open overnight! This is one fast-growing veggie. (On a related note, if this rate keeps up I'm going to need recipe ideas...)

We had some weather roller coaster-ing the past week or so - it got cold and rainy for a while, then temps shot back up, and I had some worries about system shock for the Deck Farm. But all plants seem unfazed. Zucchini, as noted, is happy as can be, and the tomato plants are popping out all over the place. I've been pruning aggressively but they're still extremely bushy. We now have actual tomatoes on both plants, though, so exciting news there - I was worried with the crowded pots there wouldn't be enough nutrients, but apparently that's a non-issue. The corn continues to shoot skyward, as well - this morning I realized it was up to my shoulders!

Whoa there, mini-farm

Y'all, the garden has gone haywire.

So for those of you not in the MidAtlantic region: we kind of skipped spring around here. It was cold cold cold chilly nice-for-about-a-minute and then boom, 85 degrees. So be it -- but it seems to have confused my plants. I had growth spurts across the board, but now everything is flowering and I have a feeling I'm going to have produce ahead of schedule. This might not seem so bad, but these plants haven't gotten quite tall enough yet to support the produce so I'm not real sure what I'm going to end up with in terms of crop yield. (Farm lingo, obviously.)

Things a-growin'

So life, as always, got in the way. Lots to report from the garden/kitchen front these days...garden first. 

I decided to go big this year, both in crops and in containers. After years of attempting to grow vegetables in small pots intended for nothing more than flowers and herb bushes, I broke down and bought whiskey barrels this year - well, plastic facsimiles, but what can you do. I then proceeded to....completely overcrowd them. Here's the deal - as I wrote last time, I had bizarrely high seed-to-start rates this year. (That last cherry tomato plant eventually sprouted for a 100% rate.) I then promised the 2 extras of each to my friend so her kids could play in the dirt productively. After THAT I was a flake, forgot about that, and planted all five of each start in the barrels. So to recap: my friend got no starts and my barrels have more plants than they should because I can't bring myself to yank them back out. (Note: the tomatoless friend situation was remedied when my mother found herself in the same situation as me and brought her extra plants over to said friend.)

Another new leaf

I talked yesterday about the revolting winter we had. Now, by God, I'm having spring. I have to believe it will eventually be something other than gloomy/chilly, and to that end I started my first round of seeds inside. 

This year I have probably the largest amount of gardening real estate I've had - and with good sun angles to boot - and am determined to maximize it. Our home, while lacking in legit yard space, has a startlingly large deck, which is both on the southwestern side and elevated away from most critters. The squirrels are an occasional issue but nothing like the deer and rabbits my mother contends with. While we do have our CSA membership for the summer, I want to be able to supplement with things that I know we like, and in a perfect world go to the grocery produce section for only specialty items and certain staples. 

The plan for the deck is ambitious but not, I hope, overly so. For produce, I'll do two kinds of tomatoes, zucchini, and container corn, which I have zero experience with but am intrigued by. Also, a pot of strawberries. I've got lavender and rosemary going inside and will relocate them when things warm up, and have two pots which will hold spearmint and thyme...I think. I'm considering doing two pots of mint, as I use it quite a bit in iced tea during the summer and thyme is such a pain in the neck to grow - and takes so much to get enough to use in a recipe. Maybe, though. I normally grow basil, but I have one of those odd hydroponic basil plants in the kitchen - purchased mid-winter because it was the exact same price as buying a clipped bundle, and I figured I'd see what happened. Much to my surprise, it's growing just fine. It's not visually interesting, or all that attractive, really, but it's there so I may as well let it be for as long as it survives. 

So back to the point. Last Monday, I started my seeds. I use the peat cups so as to not actually have to transplant them, and I generally start twice as many seeds as I want plants. This usually results in about a 70% sprouting rate, and then a few die off and I end up with the right number of actual plants. This year I am hoping for 2, at most 3, plants of each variety of tomato - I'm doing Sweet Cherries and Black Krims - so started five seeds. And all but one Sweet Cherry has sprouted! This is both exciting and daunting. If all the sprouts survive I will have too many starts, and everyone I know around here who gardens grows tomatoes themselves so will have no need for my extras. 

I was puzzling over this yesterday and remembered last summer at the food bank we occasionally had plants to give away. For the most part it was herb plants - basil and the like - but every now and then something else would be there. These plants all were WILDLY popular - gone in minutes. So if my plants are too numerous, perhaps there's a food bank here that may want them -- and on that same note, I'm now thinking maybe I ought to go ahead and plant the remaining seeds too. What do you think, readers? Do any of you have any experience with donating extra plants? 

Gloom, Doom, Diets and Food Security

So....it's been a dreary winter. I moved back east all pumped for snow and frosty mornings, and got...gray. And ice. And one blown forecast after another. Friends, this winter BLEW. And those of you in places that got five times more snow than you wanted, I know you weren't happy either. Meanwhile, Seattle seems to have had the most gloriously sunny winter in the history of time, which the Facebook has informed me of on a daily basis. Do we miss it? Yes. Yes, we do. 

The gloom has led to me wanting nothing but mounds of pasta - but EPH began a dietary change in January that, frankly, has saved me from myself. He has been doing the Whole30 program, and since we eat dinner together that means I have been doing Whole30 dinners, at least in January and March (he cycled off in February, and we were to Europe - so that worked out well for everyone). 

I'm not going to use this space to go pro or con on any diet, much less one that is basically a more extreme version of paleo - which inspires MANY opinions from people one way or another. I will say that in a season when I tend to consume cheesy noodles and chocolate at alarming rates, I was prevented from doing so, and am healthier for it. There are things I definitely do not agree with in this program, though, so am not shilling for it here - but it's been good to be forced into eating mainly whole foods. 

The restrictions of the diet have meant our dinners have been simple - meats or fishes, and vegetables. No sauces whatsoever, so simple searing, steaming, etc, using only seasonings. The rules are also pretty firm about the proteins coming from clean sources. This has meant, in essence, that we have been sticking with organic/free range meats/fishes (the latter wild-caught), and organic produce as well. It has meant that our grocery bill has gone up, and that there is limited - if any - "convenience" food in the menu - although it also means we barely eat out as following this system in a restaurant is basically "a side of steamed vegetables, please, hold the butter sauce." 

I've talked here before about the issue of hunger in low-income communities, but experiments like this really just drive home the point that eating truly clean and healthy foods - and it has been proven that the sourcing of the protein does translate into how healthy it is, in measurable ways like cholesterol and GI effects - is incredibly expensive, often prohibitively so. Yes, there are tradeoffs in every dietary choice - and there are ways to eat healthy on low budgets if you are creative and have access to options - but access is such a huge and under-addressed part of the conversation. We are lucky that we have a terrific grocery store, and that I have a car to drive to it. If my options were corner stores whose produce section is one stray banana, and long bus rides on which food may spoil, the simple goal of eating whole foods, unprocessed, within a reasonable nutrition standard while on a limited budget would be like having a goal of sprouting wings...maybe even more laughable. As we do this Whole30, I have friends who, as a Lenten exercise and fundraiser, are living on a SNAP budget for the month. Needless to say, these two average meals are so far at odds it's hard to believe we're in the same culture, globally speaking. 

This has to stop, y'all. We cannot continue to let this country be a place where people who can't afford or access decent food then end up with health conditions requiring care and/or medications that they also cannot afford or access thanks to subsisting on a terrible diet, which is all that is realistically available. If you've read this far, thanks. I don't have action items for you. I have - and always will - encourage supporting your local food banks, informing yourselves on these issues (I would hope you wouldn't be willing to just take my word for it), and generally remembering that we are only as strong as our weakest neighbor, to tweak the quote. 

Okay, soapbox vacated. Real posts coming again soon.