Margarita Chicken

This is a great little recipe, which I've only slightly adapted from Cook This! Not That!, and really mostly in terms of adding a few more beans (the two to three tablespoons in the original recipe hardly seemed adequate for a serving), and a side dish of simple red rice.

Now, while the recipe shows you how to easily doctor up a can of black beans (drain, add cumin, heat, add lime juice), if you happen to have some left over Spicy Thick Black Beans, simply use two cups of those, instead - you won't be doing any damage for the extra onion, garlic and pepper in the mix.

Margarita Chicken
Adapted from "Cook This! Not That!"
by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding

Serves 4

Bean Bed
2 cups of black beans, drained
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
juice from one lime

Chicken
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 4 oz. each)
1 cup salsa verde (warmed up, ideally)
1 cup grated Oaxaca cheese
Salt & Pepper as desired
cilantro, for garnish

If you are serving this dish with rice, get it started right away, and you should be able to easily do the rest in the time it takes the rice to cook (unless you're using instant rice, which I can't recommend). A tasty, simple version of red rice is to just add minced onion and a good sprinkle of ground annatto seed, cumin, and a pinch of salt to your regular steamed rice recipe.

Preheat your oven to 450 F, with the oven rack set to the middle. Heat the drained beans in a small saucepan, with the cumin, until thoroughly heated. Add the lime juice and stir through. Turn heat to low (or off), cover and hold until needed. Preheat your salsa in a small saucepan or in a cup in the microwave.

Salt and pepper your chicken lightly on both sides, and sear in a pre-heated skillet until deep golden brown on the first side - about 3 or 4 minutes - then flip over. As it sears on the second side, for another three minutes or so, gently spoon a little salsa verde over each chicken breast, spreading it with the spoon to just reach the edges of the chicken. Sprinkle with grated cheese, and then place uncovered in the oven for about five minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through and the cheese is bubbling.

To serve, spoon a quarter of the beans onto a luncheon-sized plate, and carefully place a chicken breast atop. Garnish with freshly chopped cilantro. Add the red rice to the side of the plate, and a couple of slices of avocado, and serve with lime wedges on the side for extra lime goodness. Leftovers work beautifully for lunch - I recommend slicing the chicken breast before stashing it away in the fridge, so it can reheat evenly (and more quickly!). I also deeply suspect that any leftovers, should you be so lucky, would make fantastic burritos. I intend to double the recipe next time, and find out.

The original recipe clocked in, according to the author, at 330 calories per serving. increasing the black beans to 1/2 a cup per serving, and adding a modest amount of red rice (3/4 cup of cooked rice) and even adding a quarter of avocado, raises the meal total to a mere (approximate) 525 calories for the whole meal (roughly 24% of those calories from fat) - absolutely still qualifying as a terrific, healthy dinner.

Quite a few of the other recipes from the book (and its companion publications) are available over at Men's Health.

Peanut Butter Cookies

These are such a classic cookie.

Some months ago, I promised a colleague that I would make peanut butter cookies for his birthday, which is coming up this week. Fortunately, I remembered ahead of time (for once), and so set about finding a recipe.

I looked high and low, and considered all kinds of exciting variations - some of which included chocolate, or oatmeal, or even quinoa (!), some of which were flourless, low-fat, or otherwise dietarily tweaked to suit what people are looking for these days. None of these were what I wanted, so I did what I should have done in the first place: dusted off my childhood recipe box, dug up the recipe that I have been making since I was eight years old (albeit, not recently), and made those.

They're awfully good.

I use smooth peanut butter, but you could use crunchy if the spirit so moves you. I am currently using an organic, unsalted peanut butter from the company "Nuts to You", which I'm finding to be an excellent cooking ingredient, and remarkably tasty just on its own.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Makes: 36 cookies
Total Prep & Cooking Time: 45 minutes

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup golden sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Those of you who have read other cookie recipes from my childhood will know that the directions actually written down are astonishingly brief. This recipes says "Press with fork and bake 10 minutes @ 350℉".

Here's a bit more detail, for those who want it.

Cream together the butter and peanut butter, either by hand or using an electric mixer. Add the sugar, and beat again. Add the egg and the vanilla, and beat again until nice and smooth. Stir together the flour, salt and baking soda, and add to the peanut butter mixture. Beat until evenly combined and there are no more streaks of flour.

Roll into walnut-sized balls, and place on ungreased baking sheets. Use a greased/oiled fork to press lines or crosses into the balls of dough, flattening them into disks. Bake one sheet at a time at 350℉ for 10 - 14 minutes, depending on your oven (and the size of your "walnuts"). When golden around the edges, remove to cooling racks.

Caponata & Polenta

These two dishes make excellent friends. The starch of the polenta creates a filling sense of satisfaction, and its creamy solidness plays counterpoint to the vegetable frenzy that is the caponata.

Of course, you can tell (I'm quite sure) that the polenta rounds in the picture were not from a polenta that I had made myself, but rather from one of those prepared tubes that you can buy. We didn't find it an entirely acceptable substitute, by the way, but once we drowned the grilled-up rounds with the deliciousness of caponata, it sufficed for the evening. Homemade polenta would have made this absolutely heavenly.

The real story here is the caponata. I've been making this for a few years, now, since I first saw a recipe from Giada De Laurentiis for Caponata Picnic Sandwiches. I've tweaked it a little to reduce the oil, and upgraded it from side dish to feature, although any leftovers certainly do make wonderful sandwiches (particularly if you have some leftover garlic bread and bocconcini). I like a piquancy in my caponata, so I reduce the sugar, but your mileage may vary. More sugar emphasizes its sort of sweet-and-sour character.

Easy Caponata
Adapted from Giada De Laurentiis
Serves 4 as a main dish

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium Italian eggplant, diced
1 to 2 stalks celery, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 tablespoon dry white vermouth (optional)
1 medium red or yellow onion, diced
1 1/2 to 2 cups unsalted canned diced tomatoes (with juices)
4 tablespoons raisins
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
4 tablespoons Italian Red Wine Vinegar
1-2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon capers
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 - 2 branches fresh basil, stems removed

This dish comes together very easily. Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the celery and saute a little, then add the eggplant and continue to saute until it begins to soften. Add the salt, and then the red pepper, and splash with a little vermouth if it is sticking (you can also use water). Stir and saute a little more, and then add the onion. Continue to saute, and once the onions are starting to get tender, add the tomatoes, raisins, oregano. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Taste, and season with salt and pepper to taste (I don't usually add any more salt here). Add the vinegar, one teaspoon of sugar, and the capers (rinsed and drained, please!), and stir through. Simmer very gently for a couple of minutes, then taste again. If needed, correct by adding more vinegar or sugar. Garnish with torn up basil leaves.

I note that this is much more colourful a dish than it may actually seem from the picture, which I blame on the inordinately, festively coloured (and busy) plate that I served it on.

That's it. Easy, right? And you can grill your polenta while it simmers, or you can make the caponata first, and serve it at room temperature once the polenta is grilled up - it's full of flavour and equally tasty warm or cool - and therefore, excellent picnic fare, as the recommended original application. You could also serve this warm over hot, soft polenta, rather than the firm version.

Now, I haven't mentioned the scruffy looking mushrooms on the other side of the plate, yes, I know. They are simply broiled mushrooms - tasty, but not very glamorous (or photogenic, apparently). Portabella mushrooms cut into slices, tossed with soy sauce and olive oil, and popped under the broiler until tender. That's it! Although, it does lead to another lovely possibility for serving the caponata: brush whole, gills-removed portabellas with a little olive oil and roast until tender, then fill with warm caponata, garnish with basil, and present triumphantly, perhaps with a nice crusty loaf of bread on the side.

Greek Shrimp Saute over Orzo

This is beautifully easy, but it's really only half a recipe: the shrimp half. You could serve this over rice, a creamy pasta, garlic toast(!), or baby potatoes, really it's entirely up to you. I chose to serve it over Creamy Parmesan Orzo, which has been a solid workhorse in my kitchen for the past six years, and it worked out just fine.

The recipe is almost embarrassingly easy, although I do need to give credit to Cooking Light's Fresh Food Fast cookbook: This was everything it was supposed to be: fast, delicious, and easy.

Greek Shrimp Saute
adapted from Fresh Food Fast
Serves 3 - 4

454 grams frozen peeled prawns
1 cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half
4 tablespoons Greek-style vinaigrette (lemon and oregano), ideally one with less fat*
10 Kalamata olives, sliced
1/4 cup torn basil
1/4 cup crumbled feta
1 clove garlic, crushed

Thaw the prawns under running water, rinsing well to remove any fishiness. Pat dry with paper towels. Toss with 1 tablespoon of vinaigrette.

Heat a skillet over high heat. Spritz with a little olive oil. Saute the shrimp for about three minutes, or until just barely cooked through. Remove to a bowl. In the emptied skillet, add the rest of the vinaigrette, the tomatoes, olives and garlic, and saute until heated through, about a minute or two, stirring constantly. Add to the shrimp, and toss to combine. Serve up the shrimp over your choice of accompaniment (in this case, the plated orzo), and sprinkle with basil and feta.

Could you add the rest of the Greek Salad components in here? A little red onion, some green pepper, maybe some cucumber, just for the textural kick? Absolutely. Or, you know, you could just make a Greek salad the way you like it, and top it with prawns sauteed in vinaigrette. I'm just saying.

*Here's a good simple version:

White Lemon Vinaigrette

2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon minced fresh oregano
1 pinch dried oregano
1/8 teaspoon Kosher salt

Combine in a sealable jar, and shake until combined. Or, combine in a measuring cup, and whisk the heck out of it!

Pineapple Thai Fried Rice

Summer has finally arrived in Vancouver, just in time for one little wave of sunshine before autumn officially hits. What this means for me, practically speaking, is that I now have a limited amount of time to wedge in all of the summery meals that I feel the need to visit every year, or else it will be as if summer never happened at all.

One of these summer favourites is Thai lettuce wraps, which I have posted about long ago again, strangely, just squeezing it in at the end of the season. While I'm eating it, I marvel that I don't make it every single week. The lettuce wraps are dangerous, in a fashion, because I will eat as much filling as I have made, no matter whether I plan to have some leftovers to take to work. I'm assuming it would travel very well to work, but I've never quite managed it. That notwithstanding, some sort of side dish is absolutely necessary, unless you want to make a filling that incorporates a starch as well, which doesn't exactly float my boat. The last time I wrote about it, I served it with spicy soba and gyoza in a sort of glorious cultural mishmash. This time, as of course you can probably guess, I chose pineapple fried rice.

I've made fried rice before, plenty of times, generally leaning toward the Chinese style that features char siu (barbeque pork), scrambled egg, and sometimes shrimp. I love it. Thai-style fried rice, however, I had never actually made at home, although I enjoy having it when I go out. Boy-howdy, there are a lot of different versions out there in Internet Land! I couldn't find one that exactly fit my needs, so I took the information that I gleaned from reading through a lot of different recipes, and put them to work on a sort of ad hoc basis. We were really pleased with the results, so I'm setting down the recipe for my own future reference, and of course, to share with you:

Pineapple Thai Fried Rice
Serves 2 to (theoretically) 4 as a side dish, or one greedy person as a main

1 cup jasmine rice
3 tablespoons coconut powder
1 large pinch lemon grass powder
water, as needed to cook the rice

Don't use too much water, you don't want the rice to become mushy. A little firm is better. Cook the rice using your usual evaporation method. It helps if you stir the coconut powder into the water and whisk to thoroughly combine. When the rice is cooked, turn it out into a bowl, carefully, and use a fork to gently separate out the grains, being careful not to overwork the rice, which will make it sticky. Allow to cool. If making this part ahead, cover and refrigerate until wanted.

1 tablespoon peanut oil
3 red Thai chiles, seeded and minced
1 Thai chile, seeded and cut into strips
2 green onions, sliced
2 tablespoons minced ginger
3 to 5 cloves garlic, minced
5 kafir lime leaves
1 cup finely diced fresh pineapple
1 to 2 tablespoons fish sauce (omit for vegan version, obviously)
1 to 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce (use double soy sauce if omitting fish sauce)
a few fresh Thai basil leaves
lime quarters, for squeezing over top
chopped cilantro, for garnish

In a wok or, failing that, a large non-stick skillet, over high heat, heat the peanut oil. Add the garlic and ginger, and minced chiles, and stir fry for a few seconds, before adding the lime leaves and pineapple. Stir fry until the pineapple starts to caramelize, and then add in the rice. Use a spatula (or wok tool) to fold the rice in the dish, coating all of the rice with the oil and seasonings. Sprinkle with fish sauce, and fold the rice again. Add the soy sauce, and fold again. Add the chile strips, some torn up basil, and the sliced green onions, and fold again. Taste the rice and see if it wants more fish sauce or soy. You want a bit of separation of rice grains, here, so that each grain of rice gets a nice "fried" texture and flavour. In practice, it will still cling gently to its neighbours. Keep gently turning the rice until everything is evenly distributed.

Tweak the seasonings as desired, adding more fish sauce or soy, or a pinch of sugar if that rocks your world, I don't think it needs it with the pineapple, but you choose. Turn out the rice into a large serving bowl, and garnish with cilantro and lime quarters for squeezing over individual portions. The cucumber garnish is of course, entirely optional, but it makes for a nice presentation, and I love eating cucumber slices, so it makes good sense to me.

If this is your main dish, you may want to top it with a crispy-fried sunny egg for each person. If you want to make it hotter, there's always sriracha, or more chiles.

The chile-star garnishes, by the way, are supremely easy. Using those little red Thai chiles, and a sharp knife, slice lengthwise through the chiles in a sort of asterisk pattern, being careful to stop at the top end of the chile. Gently scrape out any seeds. Place the cut chile in a bowl of cold water, and watch it curl open into a star/flower. If it isn't opening up nicely after 30 minutes, check to see if you need to cut down a little closer to the stem. I like to do these up for rice noodle dishes, too - it's the first thing I do when I walk into the kitchen, since they take time to open, and the cold water keeps them fresh until needed.

I didn't have Thai basil at hand, this time, so I made do with Genovese basil, which was perhaps off-profile for Thai cooking, but still delicious. Next time, Thai basil for sure.

Cajun Jambalaya with Okra

I am a huge fan of jambalaya, and it's something I almost always make at home, rather than order out. That is solely because I live on the west coast of Canada, where "jambalaya" usually involves pasta instead of rice, and seldom has sufficient seasoning - either in type or quantity, and shockingly often includes cream. When I was in New Orleans, I took great delight in sampling the extensive varieties of jambalaya available - each with a different ratio of ingredients (including seasoning), a different degree of sauciness, and a different notion as to how much one person could/should eat at lunch. Each one was a definitive jambalaya, in its own right.

Jambalaya is such a wonderfully versatile dish, that more's the pity that so few places up here get it right, and by "right" I mean an acceptable variant of the classic forms (Cajun or Creole), which is most emphatically not merely sausage and bell peppers tossed with pasta. Jambalaya needs to be a one-pot dish, rice based, and incorporating the seasonings of the Cajun or Creole variety. The rest - the protein(s), the wet/dry ratio, the choice of featured vegetables, these are all up to the cook. It can be cooked in a deep pot or a skillet, depending on how much you are making at a time.

I have been leaning toward brown, or Cajun-style jambalayas, lately, which tend not to be tomato based. This variation was conceived because I had picked up a bag of lovely looking fresh okra from the market, and needed something to make with it. As it happened, I also had some ham and a couple of chicken thighs that needed using, so, in fine ad hoc style, into the pot they went. My basic methodology is essentially the same as I previously wrote about, but tweaked to incorporate the okra.

Jambalaya with Okra
Serves 4

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large onion, diced
2 medium stalks celery, diced
1 medium green bell pepper, diced
1 cup orange (or red) bell pepper, diced
2 jalapeño peppers, diced
1 1/2 cups okra, sliced
8 oz ham steak, diced
175 g boneless skinless chicken thighs (about 2), diced
3 cloves garlic, minced/crushed
3 cups chicken broth or stock
1 cup parboiled rice
1 teaspoon red Tabasco sauce
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Salt-free Cajun spice blend (to taste - start with a tablespoon)

Heat a large cast iron frying pan well over high heat. Add oil, and tilt pan to coat bottom. Add ham cubes and sautée until they start to take on a bit of colour. Add cubed chicken, and stir well, but don't allow chicken to brown. Add the onion, celery, green pepper and jalapeño, and stir.

Cook until the onion turns nicely translucent, then add the garlic, Tabasco sauce, and spices. Stir well. Stir in the orange/red bell pepper pieces and the okra until thoroughly combined.

Stir in the (uncooked) rice, making sure that each grain gets well coated by the juices in the pan. Add the chicken stock/broth and stir again, making sure that the rice grains are all submerged. Bring up to a gentle simmer.

Turn heat to very low, cover pan, and cook for 25 minutes, stirring gently once at the ten minute mark. If it seems a little dry, you may wish to add a bit more water at this point, too. If you want to go crazy and add some raw shrimp, this is also the time to do it, at the ten (or, for small shrimp, fifteen) minute mark. Garnish with a little sliced green onion, if you like, and lots of black pepper. Pass the hot sauce.

Obviously, you can switch out the proteins however you like best: smoked sausage, turkey or duck meat, rabbit, venison sausage, shrimp, oysters, alligator, crawfish, or the classic, tasso (spiced ham) for serious points. You can increase or decrease the meat(s) and the amount of vegetables, depending on your taste or what you need to use up - this is a great way to use up extra bell peppers that might be lurking in your fridge.

Ham Rotini Casserole

This is one of those dishes that grew out of a sudden desire for a creamy pasta, which is actually a pretty common occurrence in my household. In this case, there was also a coincidental need to use up some yoghurt. For some reason, ham seemed to be the perfect thing to tie it all together, since I wasn't feeling particularly in a stroganoff-y mood. Originally there were supposed to be mushrooms, as well (some creminis which also needed using up), but I completely forgot about them until I was putting the pan into the oven, and it was simply too late.

The sauce is very creamy, and a little cheesy without feeling like a cheese pasta, perhaps because the yoghurt gives it a little tanginess that cuts through the richness. While this is no health food item, with salty ham and rich yoghurt, it is still better for you than most big ol' plates of pasta at a casual restaurant, so that's some additional comfort for a comfort food dinner.

Ham Rotini Casserole
Serves 4

200 grams rotini
125 grams boneless cooked ham, diced
1 2/3 cups 1% Milk
2 tablespoons butter
1/8 cup unbleached flour
1 teaspoon chicken base (such as Better than Bouillon)
2 garlic cloves
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan Cheese
1 cup plain, thick yoghurt (such as Liberte Mediterranee)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (230 degrees C). Bring a pot of water to boil and cook the rotini according to the package directions (until it is just a little underdone).

In a large skillet, melt butter and stir in flour until smooth. Gradually add milk, bouillon paste, salt, garlic, and pepper. Stir all together and bring to a gentle simmer, stirring until thick and bubbly. Reduce heat; add ham cubes, cheese and yoghurt. Stir until cheese is melted. Add the drained pasta, and stir through to combine. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until heated through.

Optional topping: Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in saucepan and stir in breadcrumbs and some finely chopped parsley. Sprinkle crumb mixture over casserole before baking. I was totally going to do that, but then (again) completely forgot. Seems to have been my day for forgetting things.

I debated trying to shoe-horn some vegetable matter into the casserole, but in the end decided that it really wanted to be a very simple sort of dish rather than a one pot meal (as fond of those as I am). I decided in the end to make a tossed green salad with rather a lot of chopped veggies in it - cucumbers, bell peppers, radishes, tomatoes, etc., partly to make up for the indulgence of the pasta, but mostly to give dinner a little freshness and crunchiness, both things that don't exactly go with the creamy hammy territory.

This dish was immediately voted "into the book", about two bites into dinner. The next time I've got some yoghurt to use up, I'll definitely be thinking of this one.

Meatballs: Pork & Turkey edition

I wasn't originally planning to post these, I just wanted some meatballs. However, after they turned out rather well (Palle suggested that they are the best meatballs I've ever made), and since I did kind of scribble down the proportions as I was going along, and since it turns out they are equally delicious cold (hello, bento!), I decided to share them.

I don't make meatballs or meatloaf very often, but I do like them rather a lot, as a main course unto themselves, as part of a pasta dish, as a little protein add-on to a salady sort of meal, or as a sandwich filling. Not to mention the "on a little toothpick" hors d'oeurves application.

The meatball matrix is pretty simple: ground meat(s) of your choice, seasoning, binder, corrector, and featured ingredient (if any). These meatballs are half lean ground pork and half ground turkey breast (hence the pale colour, in case you were wondering), seasoned with salt and pepper, fresh garlic, whole fennel seed, fresh parsley, and ground oregano, bound with egg, corrected with panko, and featuring finely chopped roasted red peppers and green onions.

As with hamburger and meatloaf making, one of the keys to great texture is to avoid over-mixing or over-compressing of the meat, and that means that the best tool for the job is your impeccably clean fingers. Don't be afraid to get right in there - you will have much better distribution of ingredients that way. I am also a fan of putting everything but the meat into a mixing bowl, giving it a bit of a stir with a fork (to break up the egg), and then separating the ground meat into little clumps with my fingers and dropping the bits on top of the rest of the mixture. Once all of the meat is aerated and added to the bowl, I get my fingers in there and toss it like a salad, to avoid the aforementioned over-compression. Once everything is nicely combined, I begin shaping the meatballs. This method works wonderfully for any time you are mixing ground meats.

Pork & Turkey Meatballs
Makes 12 large meatballs

450 grams lean ground turkey
375 grams ground pork
1 large egg
1 whole roasted red pepper (such as Piquillos)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
3 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 cup minced parsley
1/2 cup panko-style bread crumbs
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Combine all of the ingredients as described in the paragraph above, separating the meat into chunks, and then mixing in the rest of the components. Fry up a tiny nub of meat until cooked through, and taste to see if you need to adjust the ingredients - more salt or fennel seed, for example. Correct the seasoning as needed.

Place, spaced out, in a 9x13" glass baking dish. Sprinkle each ball with a little Worcestershire sauce. Bake at 400 F for 40 minutes - they should be just golden brown. Use a spoon to trim any "spill" of liquid into the pan, as you lift them out, once they are cooked through. If you want a slightly browner meatball, you may wish to brush them with a little soy sauce half way through, but note that this does add a bit of extra saltiness, too. Low sodium soy sauce might be your best choice, there.

You can fry these up on the stovetop, too, of course, although the meat mixture is quite moist, and you are likely to get misshapen meatballs for your extra effort. I highly recommend the baking/roasting method - the balls keep their shape, and you can spend the time that you would have been tending to the meatballs to do something else.

As mentioned above, these are great hot (for example, beside a nice polenta, or a potato-and-vegetable salad, or cold, in your bento (beside...a potato-and-vegetable salad, perhaps...)

If you're planning to make a meatball sandwich, you'll want to have a little sauce, I'm guessing. If you have a stash of leftover sauce in the freezer, this is a great use for it. Otherwise, you can either make a simple sauce from scratch, or purchase one. Warm the sauce together with the meatballs, if you are starting with cold, pre-cooked meatballs. You may want to toast up the bun, too, to add to structural integrity of the sandwich, given how damp even a thick tomato sauce can be. If you want to make your bread garlic bread, I'm certainly all in favour of that. I tend to use Portuguese buns, because I can get good ones in my neighbourhood.

These ones don't really look cooked, but they are - they're from the same batch as the bento shown above.. This is a flaw in the lighting/photography rather than the meatballs themselves, though. Of course, pork and turkey are very light-coloured meats, and I didn't do the extra browning step.

Garlic Scape Pesto

Ah, the special treats of summer that truly are still seasonal! Seize them when you can, or wait a full year for another taste.

I encountered garlic scapes last summer, in my friend Willie's garden. He had us over to dinner, and, after remarkably little slave labour helping to pick the scapes, served us some of his famous handmade fettuccine with garlic scape pesto. He also gave us a giant bag of garlic scapes to take home and play with ourselves.

Unfortunately for all of us, the scapes had gotten a bit on the large size, with the attendant increase in fibrousness. We had to discard a certain amount of each scape, and had to sieve the two dishes that we made - a simple pesto to top pork tenderloin pintxos, and a cream soup. The flavour was wonderful, but lordy, was it work.

This year, we were fortunate to receive scapes again, younger ones this time, from our bacon-curing friend, Rodney. They were much thinner and shorter, and considerably more tender, despite having spent some quality time in the fridge before we got around to using them. We went with pesto on fettuccine, because we liked it so much the first time. This pesto recipe was likely a bit different from the first one we had, but it turned out very well. We used fresh fettuccine from The Ravioli Store, because it is lovely stuff.

Garlic Scape Pesto
Serves 4 - 6

1 cup garlic scapes, finely chopped
2 tablespoons ground almonds
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cups fresh basil
1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan Cheese

Place the finely chopped scapes into a blender or small food processor, along with the almonds and basil. Pulse a couple of times, then add the salt and olive oil. Pulse and then puree until smooth. Taste it, and see if it wants the lemon juice. If so, add the juice and pulse it through. If you are going to freeze some of the pesto, put that portion aside now. If you are using it right away, stir in the cheese and you are good to go: Add to freshly cooked, drained pasta, dab onto any savory appetizer, really, or use as a pizza sauce (that's the likely fate of the bit that's in the freezer, actually). You can also stir it into a soup (white bean, for example...ooh, now I want to try that!), or as a sandwich spread, or use it pretty much as you would use any other pesto.

Sour Cherry Soup (Hideg Meggyleves)

Revenge is not the only thing that is best served cold.

When I was visiting Hungary in 1995, I fell in love with Sour Cherry Soup. It was late July, and it was about 40℃, and I was playing air-conditioning bingo on my excursions around Budapest. I ate a lot of ice cream, and tried to figure out ways to stay cool.

Fortunately for me, I was able to connect with a former co-worker and his wife, both Hungarian Canadians, who had come home for a visit at the same time I was there. With the bonus of interpreters of both language and culture, I found myself in destinations I might not have otherwise found (caving, for example, and also some peculiarly situated wine bars), and eating and drinking things that might not have otherwise caught my eye. Sour cherry soup was a revelation for not only deliciousness, but also for its cooling properties. It was served primarily as an appetizer course, but I imagine it would do just fine for dessert, as it is on the sweet side.

I am sad to report that I misplaced my original recipe for Meggyleves - I've been making it ever since I got back to Canada, although not necessarily frequently. I've consulted the internet extensively, and cobbled together from (prompted) memory just how the version that I first made goes. I do put in less sugar these days - and I may like it all the more. I'm pretty happy with this version, so it's going in the black binder, so I don't lose it again.

You do need good sour cherries, Morellos for preference. Fresh, also, for preference. I'm given to understand that pitting or not pitting is up to the cook, but I generally pit mine (unless the cherries are likely to fall apart). When I saw these at the Farmers' Market last week, I knew just what to do:

Hideg Meggyleves (Cold Sour Cherry Soup)

Serves 6 - 8 as an appetizer

1 lb. fresh morello cherries, pitted
1 cup good red wine*
3 cups water
1 cinnamon stick
2 clove buds
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons unbleached flour, shaken with 1/3 cup water
3 - 4 strips of lemon zest
1/2 cup whipping cream

Bring the cherries, half the wine, cinnamon, cloves, sugar, lemon zest, and water to a boil, and allow to simmer gently for about 10 minutes. Add the slurry of flour and water, and stir through, heating until the soup just starts to boil a little (this will thicken the texture slightly). Add the rest of the wine, bring back to a gentle simmer, and let cook over a gentle heat for another 20 minutes.

Remove the spices and lemon zest, and allow the soup to cool before refrigerating. You can force-cool it by adding an ice pack (sealed in a bag) straight into the soup. This works even faster along with a cold water bath, and moving the soup out of the cooking pot to a large bowl or soups tureen.

Once the soup is cool enough, refrigerate until quite cold.

Stir in the cream, and serve. If you like, you can also add a splash of brandy or sherry before serving. In the picture above, I've sprinkled the soup with cinnamon, but frankly, it doesn't need it.

I'm told by a Romanian-born co-worker that a similar soup is also made using tart apples. I can only imagine how good that must be - in fact, I may need to try it. I think I would use Granny Smiths and a crisp white wine with floral notes, which would make it a little bit similar to a pork tenderloin dish from Normandy.

* A brief note about the wine: You don't want a tannic Shiraz here, or a jammy Merlot. Go for brighter wines, such as a nice Zinfandel (such as Cline or Ravenswood), a Chianti, Barbera d'Alba, or Carmenere. You don't need a fancy wine, but you want one that you will enjoy, because the flavour comes through quite strongly.