Seasonal Recipes: cheap and tasty

We are probably one of the last households to receive and read three daily newspapers.  One of the best things about the NY Times and the Boston Globe are the Wednesday food sections.  Sometimes the recipes call for difficult (read drive 80 miles to get ingredients) or sound like a lot of work and with 30 ingredients (mostly vegetarian), but last week had a couple of seasonal recipes that sounded like something I might try, and try I did.

From the Times, I made the Cucumber and Buttermilk Soup with Sourdough Croutons. Quick, Flavorful No-Cook Soup  It's a lovely green color and had a pleasant taste before chilling.  From the Globe I got Orzo salad with green beans, tomatoes and olives. Truth be told, we are eating the croutons on hand, whatever their flavor. Yummy orzo salad recipe

Our tiny garden has produced a bounty of cukes, and naturally a recipe where I needed two pounds (!) was welcome.  Buttermilk and avocados were on sale, and the herbs were in the garden, too.  This was a no-brainer.

The salad uses green beans and tomatoes, always a good combo, and I had a package of orzo.  Olives from the olive bar for flavor and that elegant little touch of black.  Sweet onion  also on sale.  Basil and mint in the garden.  This looks like a winning vegetarian meal.  Easy, great for a hot evening, an no list of 27 ingredients or time-consuming cooking.

The Times and the Globe today had tributes to Julia Child on the occasion of her 100th birthday.  I have her epic cookbooks, and always had a favorite veal stew that I made with fresh tomatoes every summer.  Caflouti is a favorite dessert in our house, easy to make, tasty and not a diet-buster.  The Times has a yummy roast pork recipe from Julia that I'll make tomorrow for family company.

The great thing about the recipes in the newspaper is that they come to you.  No wracking of brain, no browsing through cookbooks (a pleasant activity, nonetheless).  Ingredients are usually seasonal.  By and large prep is not too difficult.  Just screen out those too time-consuming, weird or that don't really sound all that good.   You'll recognize them immediately.  They call for lime leaves and oddball stuff.  Or weird combos like kale and squash.  Butternut squash is fine for soup or a vegetable but I get fatigued seeing it in the most outre combinations. Now I never tire of green bean recipes!  Yay. 

I'll do photos tomorrow, so  you can judge for yourself.  We had more chicken pesto pasta salad with tomatoes this week.  My own recipe, intuited many years ago from Rebecca's Cafe in Kendal Square, Cambridge.  That was one dynamite dish.

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Happy Holidays to All

Not posting much, rather baking (6 diffeent cookies so far).  Got inspired by the film "Julia and Julie" and cooked a couple recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  I made a chicken with onions and fried potatoes and was it ever tasty. Easy, too.   Nostalic articles in the NY Times today about "Le Cafe des Artistes" on Manhattan's west side, and also what has happened to all the super-duper French restaurants in NYC?  What has happened everywhere?  Go to Montreal for good French cooking.  Or France, or course.

Tonight, with the first child back in the fold, we had a steak dinner with rib eyes, baked potatoes with all the accoutrements, Italian green beans, a fresh salad and wine.  Tasted really good.  I ate half a steak and that was plenty.   Looking forward to cookies.

Still need to do some shopping.  My bad!  Reading a Cynthia Riggs book (fun!) and volume II of Proust and the story stories in Quarry from Level Best Books.  It is hard to keep up with the papers and magazines much less the books.

Compared scallop recipes today with a woman at the Roche Brothers fish counter.  In the old days in Wellesley, on a day before a big holiday, the checkout line would wind all the way back to the meat counter and the store would practice queueing theory and everything moved along nicely.  They also had  a cheese labeled "local goat" and we always wondered if there was just one.  I never expected to spend such a large part of my life in Massachusetts.  

I am doing all right on the MAC, and getting the hang of things quite handily.    Poor Annie spent yesterday and part of today at the vets.  Water around her heart.  They drained it.  She did NOT say, "all is forgiven" when she got home but she was obviously much better.  Ate, drank, indulged in a little catnip.  The best present is having her better.  She is a love.

Christmas greets to everyone.

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Clafouti's Rock!

The nectarine clafouti in all its glory. Tasted like a dream. I can't even tell you how fast this goes together. Peel the fruit and slice, (2.5 nectarines) measure the milk,sugar,eggs, vanilla, salt and flour into the blender. Blend for 60 seconds. Pour a very thin layer into the heat-proof dish and set over a low burner for a minute or so. When that is almost "set," pour in the fruit and then pour the contents of the blender over the fruit. Smooth with the back of a spoon. Put in a 350 degree oven for about an hour.

Admire and eat. We each put a spoonful (any more is piggy) of heavy cream over the top. Makes 6 servings, and eating two at one sitting is tempting but would also be piggy.

Apparently the new interest in Julia Child's recipes has spurred gasps and palpitations from the low-fat freaks who blanche at the words "whole eggs" "butter" and, OMG, "heavy cream." Why do you think it tastes so good, dummy?

I confess that 2% milk, which is what we usually have, does not impair the clafouti. I buy whole milk to make ice cream. The NY Times (or was it the Globe) had a dynamite recipe for a black berry (be still my heart) clafouti.

Kids, this is a fab easy recipe for the dog days of summer when you don't feel very ambitious, but you have to do something with all that fruit you overbought. Google any recipe. Mine calls for 3 eggs and is plenty rich.

Off to do some writing, and then to bake the orange yogurt bread I found on the web. I'm taking it to our weekend hosts. Can freeze in the meantime to avoid last minute frenzy. Hate that last minute frenzy. I bought some fancy whole milk Greek yogurt, and have a beautiful naval orange. I've blogged about it before, so seek and ye shall field.

Tra la! Tra la!

Grapeshot who is feeling frisky and energetic this morning--about half her age, actually.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Waaaay Back in the Day.


Back in the day, I used to have elegant dinner parties, usually eight, since that's how many the table held comfortably, and sometimes I'd cook from Julia Child. I believe Veau Prince Orloff is as fancy as I ever got. Sometimes I made that fancy dish where you slather a filet of beef with pate, and then wrap the whole business in pastry, and even cut out little decorative doo-dads out of pastry to put on top. Beef Wellington. A big-assed production to be sure.

When I was whipping up these delectables, I weighed 103 pounds and smoked like a chimney, chased my little boys around, played nonstop tennis and only sat down to eat and read the paper. If we ate like that now, we'd weigh, well, we'd weigh a whole lot more than we already do.

Julia Child's masterwork is now the #1 best seller on the "how to" non-fiction list. As I type, I have the first edition 1961 in front of me. I think it was not such a big best seller back then, because in 1961 I didn't know how to cook and would have been intimidated as hell if someone had given me such a monster treatise on cooking.

So my copy of Julia arrived much later, but still a first edition. The Veau (Veal) Prince Orloff is a production, but there are many recipes which are not labor intensive at all, and don't require a king's ransom in ingredients.

Before I stopped eating veal, I always made Saute de veau Marengo, which was a very simple veal stew with tomatoes, onions and mushrooms. One could even use white vermouth as the wine. It was delicious and perfect for now when one can buy or even grow decent tomatoes.

Julia's recipe for ratatouille will never be beat, but it is a pain in the ass to make, cooking every veggie separately. But it you want to know le vrai ratatouille, whip up a bunch. Again, this season is the perfect time. I love it cold, and it's sooooo good for you.

Another simple recipe, peasant food, really is a Clafouti. A Clafouti (a fruit flan) goes together in minutes with milk, eggs, flour and sugar. Use whatever fruit. I have a fab recipe, not Julia's for bananas. Cherries are traditional. I'm thinking of a nectarine one this evening.

Tonight we're having a shrimp salad with lots of veggies, a Penzey's recipe. We're had a modicum of luck dropping a few pounds with main course salads (skip the cheese), soups and grilled meat and veggies. We eat Insalata Caprese daily. Soooo good. Those home grown tomatoes really up the ante, flavor-wise.

I sent out a bunch of queries, esp. for Festival Madness, and got back a bunch of not-interesteds. Burning Man starts in 3 days, and I was hoping to drum up some interest. Not. Trying to keep a stiff upper lip, as a short story will be published in a couple of months, and I have some other irons in the fire. It's hard, though, character-building one could say.

I am amazed that I'm still writing, still enjoying it. Only a crazy person . . .

Crazy as a loon,

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The Neurasthenic Go Go Dancer

There's a woman in my aerobics class that I don't much like. She's a backstabber, and has the most unpleasant smile. The always backs up three feet and screws up the rows while whoever has the misfortune (sometimes me) to be standing behind her scrabbles for floor space.



Worse, she doesn't have an honest movement. Her twee little butt shakes and hand flaps drive me crazy. The appears unable to extend an arm or a leg or move with any vigor at all. I don't know WTF she's doing, but it's not aerobics. There's 80 year olds in the class who exhibit more energy than she does.



Why do some people get under your skin? It's not even personal. Usually I like most everyone until there's a sufficient reason not to. Her I didn't like from the day I first set foot in the class. It is chemistry? Hard to say.



Enough about the aerobically challenged one.



Today is a frenzy of cooking I made french bread and a minestrone with Italian sausage. Not vegetarian of course, but muy delicioso. Tomorrow we're smoking some salmon and eating more bread and soup.



Annie the cat has escaped twice today, both times S.O.'s doing. She's enjoying the nice evening and the birds are batshit, esp the catbird. Well, whatchagonna do? She'll come in when she's hungry. Hope the cat-chasing dog doesn't spot her. The whippet.



Going upstairs to watch the Barefoot Contessta. Can't wait to see the new Julia Child movie.



Grapeshot, who expects those in an aerobics class to actually do aerobics.

Ratatouille

We are eagerly seeking out recipes that begin, "take 2.5 pounds of tomatoes, and . . . " Ratatouille is a great side, because the recipe calls for all the veggies that are in season in your garden or at the farm stand. I made a big pot this week and it was delicioso. Muy.

Tomtoes from your garden are best. We also had green pepper and basil. Oh, it was lovely. Julie Child has a great recipe, but it is a pain to make. Use lots of garlic and olive oil. A spoonful or two of capers add interest.
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/RATATOUILLE-108350

Epicurious will not lead you wrong.

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Salade Niçoise

We had company this weekend and due to working around a theater curtain time, etc., I decided to make a Salade niçoise, I chose the salad in Julia Child's The Way to Cook as my recipe.

Now we all know that Julia is not the short-cut queen, no recipes in 30 minutes from the French Chef, so I was prepared for a bit of work. My only "shortcut" if indeed it was, was to cook the small Yukon Gold potatoes whole and peel them. I also omitted anchovies since I don't like anchovies and when you are the cook you can do what you damn well please.

O.K. second substitution was to buy three small beautiful tuna steaks and grill them. I made Julia's potato salad, cooked the beans, S.O. grilled the tuna, and I boiled some eggs, and pounced upon a beautiful red tomato, capers, black olives, lettuce, the works all laid out beautifully on a big ceramic platter.

The dressing was a lemon-garlic affair, with both lemon peel and lemon juice and raw garlic pounded to a paste. A bit of work but well worth it. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts and we had a feast.

At the other end of the spectrum was dessert. I know our friend likes strawberries, so a strawberry dessert seemed optimal. I recalled back in the first years of marriage I had been on a Bavarian cream kick, making various flavors of a French dessert called Bavarian cream.

I looked in the old New York Times cookbook and lo, there is was, but it was the shortcut version--Julia would have disapproved big time. I measured out all the ingredients including a heaping cup of chipped ice and dumped them into the blender in the prescribed order, and blended the prescibed number of second, and lo, strawberry Bavarian cream in less than a minute, no cooking. Raw eggs, too. My bad. I licked the spoon to test whether the eggs were safe and I guess they were.

We ate it with sliced strawberries from Wards Berry Farm, altogether lucious with no hard white centers, but red berry all the way through.

So this was yin and yang of meals, but lovely.

As for lovely, the garden looks and smells lovely. The white carnations bloomed and have sent a fragrance over the yard and now into the house as I picked a few and added the sage blossoms, favored by the bumble bees.

The tomatoes, heirloom beets, pepper and herbs are growing apace, and the flowers are blooming, even the new white lupine, and the clematis has huge purple blossoms. The hummingbirds come to the feeder regularly and one looked at us in the window this morning. We had a fantastically large butterfly, all yellow and black, and of course the dragon flies swoop and land on the flowers. So life is good on the edge of the slough.

Big goldfinch battle yesterday. They are territorial little guys. Catbirds have discovered how to get into the suet feeder for small birds.

We had a good rain this morning and everything is lush. Looking at the garden puts me into a good mood, which is a good thing, because Festival Madness has two more rejections. We looked at the beginning again, and it read pretty good.

The New York Times Book Review today had many of the same books as the WSJ. Not my cuppa tea. The Globe's list is more literate, but Boston readers are obviously not typical.

Tonight I'll do a few more pages of the new book. I really need a working title.

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