Snapper with Spinach Pesto and Corn Salad

Greetings once again!  Do know, you have not been forgotten in any way, but amazing projects at work have me coming home late every evening, followed by research and writing papers for a set of classes I’m taking.  Currently I’m in survival mode, which means … time to cook!

Spinach pesto has been on my mind since I read it in someone’s blog awhile back.  In looking for a balanced, light meal, some spinach pesto over whatever fish looked good that day sounded like a good plan.  Has anyone seen the Ask Aida show on FN?  While the format is a bit odd for my preference, she is someone who comes across as trustworthy and the calmness of the show is welcome these days.  Turns out she has a corn salad recipe, so I gave it a go.  Good decision making on this meal all around!

Spinach pesto

5 oz pkg baby spinach

2 handfuls pine nuts

2 limes, juiced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1.  Put the spinach, lime juice, pine nuts and garlic in a food process or and pulse until smooth.  Add olive oil and parmesan cheese and process a few seconds.  Taste.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Corn Salad

For the dressing:

• 1 1/2 cups packed fresh cilantro
• 1/2 cup  extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lime zest
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

For the salad:

• 4 ears cooked corn, kernels removed (about 3 cups)
• 1 1/2 pounds grape tomatoes, halved (about 3 cups)
• 1 pound fresh mozzarella, diced
• 2 medium avocados, diced

Directions:

Whisk together the dressing ingredients in a large bowl, using 2 teaspoons salt, and pepper to taste. Combine the salad ingredients in a large bowl and toss with the dressing. Let sit at least 15 minutes before serving, or cover and refrigerate for up to 4 hours.

Pan fried snapper:

Heat a pan over medium heat until nice and hot.  Add 1 TBS oil, and let warm.  Add snapper.  Flip after one minute, or when fish is opaque a bit on the bottom edges.  Cook for one minute.  Turn off the heat and allow fish to finish cooking with the residual heat for about 4 more minutes.

Notes:

* The pesto is meant to be very spinachy and not very garlicy.  If you just can’t handle that notion, just double the garlic as you always do.  (You know who you are!)

*  I cut the snapper into potion sizes before cooking to make the flipping part easier.

* Corn salad of various sorts is a common dish around here during corn season, but the addition of fresh mozzerella was a new twist for me.  Yummy!

Asparagus with Parmesan Crumbles

Looking for a way to dress up some roasted asparagus?  This is a nice little ditty. It has all of those important components:  delicious, pretty, local seasonal asparagus.  This dish started with some good luck:  I got the last two bunches of the good stuff from the Arata farm stand, leaving the tub empty.

Recipe adapted from Ellie Krieger on The Food Network.

Ingredients:

• 2 slices whole-wheat bread, crusts removed
• 2 hard-boiled eggs
• 3 tablespoons chopped parsley leaves
• 1/2-ounce (1/4 cup) freshly grated Parmesan
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Pinch pepper
• 2 pounds asparagus, washed, ends snapped off

Directions:

1.  Pulse the bread in the bowl of a food processor until it becomes fine crumbs. Spray a nonstick skillet with cooking spray and heat pan over medium-high heat until hot. Lower heat to medium, add bread crumbs to the skillet and toast, tossing often, until crumbs are golden brown and toasted, about 5 to 6 minutes. Remove from heat and cool completely.

2.  Grate eggs medium microplane grater, omitting one of the yolks. Combine the egg, bread crumbs, parsley, cheese, salt, and pepper in a medium-sized bowl and toss to combine.

3.  Grill the asparagus until firm, but tender, about 4 to 6 minutes, turning once.

4.  Arrange asparagus on a serving platter and top with Parmesan-Egg Crumb Topping.

Notes:

• The original recipe called for just one egg, but the yolk to whites ratio just didn’t work for me, hence the whites from a second egg.
• We only used about half of the topping on our asparagus, and it was plenty.
• I’d make this again for guests, but for our family dinners, simply grilling that lovely asparagus with a bit of olive oil and kosher salt still rules the day!

The Gift

Oldest son comes home from coaching the swim team and says, “Guess what one of my swimmers gave me?”  Um, a new stopwatch for timing splits or something?  No, eggs!  The swimmer’s family lives on a ranch, and the chickens are producing faster than the family can consume.  So, we got eggs!  I was just about as excited as the Sunset magazine staff when their chickens produced the first eggs on their One Block Diet blog.  Aren’t these eggs beautiful, feathers and all?

The Strawberries are Here!

The most beautiful red strawberries are now available!  Chan’s on Walnut Blvd has strawberries at their road side stand, or go right on into their field for a U-Pick hey day.  They also sell some lovely herbs and red onions that they grow at the end of each row of strawberries.

The stand at the corner of Highway 4 and J4 is also open.  Yahoo!  They must have a business name, but in these parts we simple call it “the strawberry stand on the corner.”  Clever, eh?  Last year they added a smallish garden with various veggies and some blackberry vines.  In less than a year, those vines have grown over 6 feet.  Oh, it is going to be a berry good season!

Salpicon of Chicken Tacos

Burning Desires, Salsa, Smoke and Sizzle is a cookbook you just need on your shelf.  If you are a cookbook reader, ie you take a stack of cookbooks and a nice cold one out to the deck to plan all of the wondrous meals you will make during the endless hours of your weekend, you’ll be way into this.  The topics are all things grilled and lovely marinades and sauces to accompany them.  Chapters include the obvious like “A Smoldering Passion:  BBQ and beyond” and the less obvious such as “With a Little Help From My Friends: Starters, Salads, and Starches”  and yes, all of those are actually grilled.  There are recipes (duh!), each preceded by a little story.  But, the key here is the perfect introduction to each section.  How to grill?  Got that.  And I know you have access to this basic information a gazillion places.  Salads on the grill?  Interesting, but not new.  Here’s the kicker people … if you actually follow these conversational style directions, you cannot lose.  This is one of very few books where everything, and I mean everything, made from it is 100% top notch! Um sorry, just double checked on where you can find this priceless book, and discovered it is out of print.  Shoot!

On to today’s dish … this is kind of like a spicy chicken salad in a soft taco.  There is an interesting technique of marinating the smoked, shredded chicken after it was cooked.  It really makes for a fresh, bright flavor.  The book desribes how to perfectly smoke the chicken on a kettle grill.  While the dish is certainly exceptional with that method, I’ve been known to just rub a bit of liquid smoke on the chicken before popping it on a gas grill when the wind is whipping up too much of a breeze.

Ingredients:

1 chicken, cut into breasts, drimsticks, thighs, and wings

3 cups smoking chips

1/2 cup lime juice

1/3 cup olive oil

2 fresh jalapeno chiles, seeded and minced

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 medium tomato, cut into 1/2 inch dice

1 avocado, pitted and cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1/2 cup whole fresh cilantro leaves

3 TBS thinly sliced green onions

Romaine leaves

flour tortillas, warmed

Directions:

1.  Smoke the chicken by setting on the cool area of the grill, starting skin side down, and turning every 15 minutes until just cooked through.  Remove from the grill and cool to room temperature.  Skin the chicken, remove the meat from the bones and coarsely shred it.

2.  While the chicken is almost finished cooking, prepare the marinade.  In a large bowl, stir together the lime juice, olive oil, jalapenos, salt, and pepper and let stand at room temperature for 20 minutes.  Add shredded chicken and toss together.  (The salad can be prepared to this point up to 1 hour ahead.  Cover and refrigerate.)

3.  Just before serving, add the tomato and avocado, tomato, cilantro and green onions to the bowl and mix gently.  To serve, line a tortilla with a large romaine leaf, top with chicken salad, and fold in half to create the taco.

Notes:

*  For a lower carb version, just do away with the tortilla.

*  Fresh lime juice is a must in this dish for that bright, zesty flavor.

The Potato Salad

Oh Easter!  While ham is the traditional center piece of the traditional family meal, we take the opportunity to pig out in our own way.  See, at this house, warm weather, a celebratory day, and some time for lingering and hanging out lake side means just one thing:  ribs!  These are not your boil then bake ribs, nor your grill and add some bottled sauce at the end ribs.  Oh no.  These are the gently prepped and rubbed with secret spices the day before, then smoked low and slow on the smoker for at least 4 hours with the patience of Job, while gently misting mop sauce on the works of art.  Yes, those ribs.  And I was to make the sides.

Unlike Thanksgiving, which is all about the sides, this was all about the ribs.  Potato salad is a must, but while I go for anything but the traditional style, the rest of my clan, and most importantly for this day the BBQer himself, likes that regular stuff.

Side story:  Lately, I’ve become a big follower of the More Than Burnt Toast blog where it feels like a conversation with a wonderful, grounded friend.  Nice. The most recent post was for the Barefoot Bloggers group who make and share recipes by or based on Ina Garten, aka The Barefoot Contessa.  These folk really share the love and admiration for her work.  So, trusting the blogosphere once again, I went to Ina for the perfect recipe.  And yes … Bingo!

Sources:

• Potatoes from Arata Fruits
• Dill from Chan’s

New Potato Salad

Ingredients:

3 pounds small red potatoes

Kosher salt

1 cup good mayonnaise

1/4 cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons whole-grain mustard

1/2 cup chopped fresh dill

Freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup finely chopped celery

1/2 cup finely chopped red onion

Directions:

1.  Place the potatoes and 2 tablespoons of salt in a large pot of water. Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, until the potatoes are barely tender when pierced with a knife. Drain the potatoes in a colander, then place the colander with the potatoes over the empty pot and cover with a clean, dry kitchen towel. Allow the potatoes to steam for 15 to 20 minutes.

2.  Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, buttermilk, Dijon mustard, whole-grain mustard, dill, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Set aside.

3.  When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, cut them into quarters or halves, depending on their size. Place half of the the cut potatoes in a large bowl. While the potatoes are still warm, pour enough dressing over them to moisten. Transfer to a plate.  Repeat with remaining potatoes, and again, transfer to the plate. (Doing this in batches prevents the potatoes from losing their shape.)

4.  Put the plate of lightly dressed potatoes in the freezer for 20 to 30 minutes, or until cooled.   Add the celery and red onion, 2 teaspoons of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper. (As the salad sits, you may need to add more dressing.)  Toss well, cover, and refrigerate for a few hours to allow the flavors to blend. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Notes:

* The steaming technique worked like a charm!

*  Actually, I used smallish red potatoes because that was what I found at Arata farm stand.

*  It took everything in me not to muck this up by adding a bit of dill pickle, some hard boiled egg, then just keep the additions going with some red bell  pepper and anything else that seemed to fit at the moment.  But, this turned out perfect … all about the potatoes and nothing else to distract it.

*  Naturally, a nice green salad would accompany this.  My “go to” vinagrette is a bit sweet to serve with ribs, so I tried another Barefoot Contessa recipe and its a true keeper,  simple enough to let the mixed greens shine.

Make Way for Goslings

The goslings have arrived!  The past month has been full of odd experiences due to nesting season.  Early morning while walking, a duck seemed to fly out of a pine tree and scared the bejezus out of us.  (Actually, we think a cat walked near a nest and the duck flew off from behind the tree, but still a wacky sight.)  While driving through town, everyone slows down for the ducks and geese who decided to nest in front yards when they cross the street.  It is not unheard of to see someone stopping traffic for a bird crossing.  And everyone smiles.

And now … goslings!  These little guys must be brand new, as they are more duckling in size.  When I tossed them some bread, the dad wanted to come over for a snack, but the mom and little ones just kept on going.  Still, I managed to keep the dogs out of the back yard to snap this picture for you.  Aren’t they just the cutest?!

Teenagers

Driving through the orchards and vineyards, its hard not to notice that the world of horticulture is going through an awkward phase.

Trees are sprouting new growth, in a not so graceful fashion.

Long tendrils of woody vines are sprouting funky little green nubs.

Even the strawberries are puffing up, yet not yet bearing ripe fruit.

It is just that awkward phase, and we all know they will grow out of it.

Smoked Salmon, Asparagus, and Goat Cheese Rolls

Its time to be honest here. Creativity? Oh, I do wish! Planning ahead? Likewise. Allowing enough time before a big event to drop back and punt? In another life. But this time, for once, it all worked just like in my dream!

So, it was time for our Gourmet Dinner Club to get together for food, wine and a bunch o’ fun. C and J planned this cooking party thing (very brave, VERY brave!) and each of the other couples brought appetizers to nibble on while we cooked. Let’s see here, Spring … asparagus, salmon … something light. Found a perfect recipe for these little lovelies here.

But then it got dangerous …. I got thinking. Presentation. This is not my forte, and I know that Ron and Sandi who got us started on this whole adventure really pride themselves on presentation with their group. After a bit of tossing ideas around in my mind, I came up with the perfect plan: put the salmon rolls on a fake plant! Haha! Actually, these little tasty morsels look just like little spring buds just as I anticipated. Although I’m not sure which was funnier: the look on my husband’s face when I finished putting it together and declaring it perfect, or when I walked through the door at our friend’s house and they realized the potted plant I was carrying WAS the appetizer! Regardless how you present it, this is a great little make ahead winner!

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons chopped shallot
• 3 ounces soft fresh goat cheese (such as Montrachet), room temperature
• 1/4 cup trimmed peeled chopped raw asparagus
• 1/2 teaspoon minced lemon peel

• 6 ounces thinly sliced smoked salmon

Directions:

Heat olive oil in heavy small skillet over medium heat. Add chopped shallot and sauté until beginning to soften, about 1 minute. Transfer to medium bowl. Mix in goat cheese, chopped asparagus, and lemon peel. Season filling to taste with salt and pepper.

Place sheet of plastic wrap on work surface. Using 1/5 of salmon, form 6×3-inch rectangle atop plastic, overlapping salmon slightly. Spoon 1/5 of filling along 1 long side of rectangle, leaving 1/2-inch plain border. Using plastic as aid, roll up salmon into tight log. Repeat with remaining salmon and filling, forming 4 more logs. Refrigerate logs until firm, about 2 hours or overnight.

Remove plastic from logs. Cut each log crosswise into 4 pieces.

Notes:

• The asparagus was FRESH from TK’s Best farm stand. (Just had to brag on that!)
• Don’t know if this is in the new Trader Joe’s cook book, but it should be.
• The fake plant was picked up at Home Goods. That store is my total addiction.
• The stakes holding the salmon rolls are just those little metal stakes covered with floral tape from Michaels. I just twisted them around a screwdriver to create an itty bitty ledge so the salmon rolls wouldn’t slowly slide down the stakes during the evening.
  

Let the 2009 Season Begin!

Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, let it be known that the 2009 farm stand season is officially open! TK’s Best and Arata are both open and serving happy lovers of local food.

But first, story time. There once was a little road, Walnut, connecting many growers of fine foods. It was a small, two lane road, connecting the little town of Brentwood with a little two lane winding road leading to Larger Towns. As Brentwood grew, and the Larger Towns grew, more and more people drove down Walnut Road. These were busy, busy people with busy, busy lives and they all have to get to important places very fast. Over time, the little winding two lane road was widened into a newer, wider winding road so the important people could quickly speed to their important destinations. Little Walnut was overwhelmed and getting tired. The growers of delicious foods still grew those delicious foods and sold them at family farm stands at the side of the road, but it became dangerous for the buyers of those delicious foods to pull over on this busy road to buy them. No one was happy. Over time, some of these important people figured out how to use taxpayer money to build a By Pass so they did not have to drive through any more little two lane roads while going to their important places and doing their important things. Now the very busy important people can go around the little two lane road and the growers of delicious foods and the people who like to buy delicious foods directly from the farmers have Walnut to themselves once again. And everyone was happy.

Saturday, I got the call from C that TK’s Best was open! Naturally, I planned an errand route to include it. At this point, there is obviously a limited selection, and most of the food is brought in from Central Valley farms, but it is a good start to the season. Driving up the remainder of Walnut Avenue, I checked out the other stands … closed, closed, closed. Chan’s strawberries are looking healthy, but they are still finishing up that ripening process.

Driving back home, down beautiful Walnut Avenue, Arata caught my eye. Were there people there? Really? A quick U-turn and back to their stand made me customer #7 for the season. Oh, lucky me! Nicholas and Michael were both there, again with a few items from their land and more from other farms they support.

The season has officially started!