Zucchini Panzanella

Remember that zucchini that cropped up while I was on vacation? Well its starting to look like it might be the only one my Jurassic size plants create. And since it was enormous, I figured it deserved a place in the center of dinner, maybe to honor it in front of the garden gods so that they might give me one more zucchini.


Panzanella is a fabulous dish for when its too hot to eat, cook, or live in general. If you are like me, and lighting the grill and standing over it when its ninety degrees seems unappealing, you can use a grill pan and stand in your underwear in the kitchen.

For this version, I grilled cherry tomatoes until just blistered and corn on the cob until it looked - and smelled- really roasted, because my grill pan is teeny I  sauteed the zucchini with a sweet white onion but if you have the space I encourage you to grill all the vegetables.

I used a whole wheat rosemary bread bought at the farmers market, and toasted the cubes under the broiler. In this heat I sometimes just eat popsicles for dinner, so I'm willing to call this a win, even if its not really grilled the way I like it.


I dressed this with homemade raspberry vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper and a shallot all whizzed up in the blender. This is a substitution friendly sort of a dinner salad, so feel free to use whats on hand, if you have no zucchini, use another squash, or make it a little more fresh with a cucumber.


Quasi Grilled Panzanella
1 pint cherry tomatoes
2 ears of corn, shucked and cleaned
1 loaf of rosemary bread
1 mammoth sized (or 2 small) zucchini
1 small sweet white onion
Raspberry Vinaigrette

Heat your grill to high, and place on the tomatoes and the ears of corn whole, turning occasionally to give an even char. * Once they reach your desired level of doneness, remove them from the grill and set them aside. To remove the kernels from the cob,I like to stand the ear of corn on the pillar in the center of a bundt pan and cut the corn off the cob with a sharp knife in a downward motion, just let the pan well collect all the roasted corn goodness. While you are grilling your vegetables, toast the cubes of bread and saute the onion and zucchini If you let this go as long as you grill the corn you should get a lovely caramelization on the onions. toss the ingredients together and serve warm with a drizzle of raspberry vinaigrette.

*Pay close attention to the tomatoes as they can explode in the heat, you want them just blistered, then you can remove them. Let the tomatoes cool while you prepare the rest of this salad, while cooking them deepens their flavor, because of their liquid insides they become finger and mouth scalding bombs when you cook them.

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Summer

This week I took time off to visit friends in New Hampshire. Sometimes living in an area where you have to get in the car and drive in order to see the woods allows you to forget that an hour up 95 there is open space and trees and fields that aren't rationed off to those who can afford to live near them. I spent alot of time lying in the sun, staring at the cornfield, and drinking dandelion wine.

 It was a solid reminder that somewhere other than my life things move a bit slower. Nothing particularly amazing happened in the way of food, except for a tour of a fairly sizable vegetable garden, but when I came home I got my first zucchini off our plant, and the first cucumber too. The gifts just keep on coming.

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Faux Pho

Its been a hell of a month, and it doesn't look like our summer is headed in direction that we had hoped. I'm working on a side project, trying to get it up and running before all the summer produce slips away from my fingers, and running myself in two directions. The man, who broke his ankle a few weeks ago and is awaiting a second surgery does a surprisingly large amount of 'the dirty work' keeping the kitchen, and the rest of the house running...and now that he's laid up for at least another month....Well lets just say I'm desperately clinging to the idea that he'll be magically healed in a week...
When he came home from the hospital the first time I had promised him whatever made him feel better would be dinner...cut to Eggs Benedict with hollandaise that was almost clear, takeout Chinese, and a mess of other kitchen horrors that look appetizing... until you bite into them and realize I've been so tired that I forgot salt...on everything.

But tonight, I was on my game...probably has something to do with having yesterday off and doing very little. Tonight I took what remained of the leftover ground beef from burgers we (ahem, my father) grilled on July 4th and made little ginger and beef meatballs, I thinly sliced pea pods from Allandale Farm and cabbage from Two Fields Farm and sauteed it in the wok. I simmered vegetable broth with ginger and garlic and a chile, and after the meatballs got a quick browning, they went into the vegetable studded broth to simmer. Flat Chinese egg noodles sparingly dressed in toasted sesame oil made little nests that cradled the meatballs (more like little meat dumplings, without dough, really) and swam with the broth. I topped it off with some of our very own cilantro and a super finely chopped garlic scape. Rose was poured and we ate before it got dark. I was the winner. The dish reminded me a little of the Pho we used to eat years ago when we lived by the beach. It was pretty easy and more importantly satisfying,(when you aren't eating on a regular schedule, sometimes salad will not cut it for dinner, even if its eighty degrees...besides that's why we have air conditioning)

These are the kind of nights I look forward to, when lunches are packed and the vegetable garden is watered and I live in (feigned) ignorance about the fact that there is not a single clean towel in the house.

I may be tired and not very good company but I'm still cooking.... More...

Jump Start

Yesterday the farmers market opened...I bought some seedlings, arugula, kale, French breakfast radishes and green onions...the market is a great reminder that while you may be seeing corn on the cob and zucchini as thick as your forearm in the grocery store, its still only the beginning of June in Massachusetts, and those things are still a few weeks away around here.

The market served as a beautiful jumping off point for me...I haven’t stopped cooking but its gotten awful quiet around here...and admittedly over the winter I did overindulge a bit. I’m blaming a new job, the holiday season and a damn fine French cookbook...holy-majoly, I was not eating right! But I’m back to eating my vegetables and watching my portions and I couldn’t be happier to see the warm weather (and the sunlight that stretches until 9pm) return. With its return I’m hoping to resurrect the writing I do here.

Lately I’ve broken through a few ‘food fears’ of mine: I baked a loaf of yeast baked bread (!!) and I managed to (miraculously) pull an almost flawless bundt cake from its pan. I’ve been feeling rather invincible…you know, until I burn something. The man and I have been experimenting in mixology which is exciting and terrifying at the same time…we are ardent beer and wine people, but I’ve recently found that if you crush herbs into a cocktail I’m totally smitten with it. (Next up: I’m going to conquer the Americano.)

As I said; we haven’t stopped cooking. There have been all sorts of spring risottos, with fiddleheads and asparagus. There was a week of cold rain that was eventually chased away with pasta carbonara (dear whole foods, thanks for selling prosciutto ends for almost free) I made apple rhubarb bundt cake and a loaf of sesame bread. I roasted fish over leeks and tomatoes, and last week I made amazing turkey burgers on our charcoal grill and I knew summer was on its way.

I cant wait to show you what else we're up to this season.

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Asparagus Pizza

have been living with the man for almost a year now, and since I do most of the cooking, and will mostly eat anything that grows in the dirt, I have had to cultivate a short list of Vegetables To Be Eaten Alone...That is to say, vegetables that the man wont be seen with, have on his plate, and are certainly no where to be found in his (our) fridge.Not that the man is a picky eater, in actuality he'll eat nearly anything you set in front of him, but there are certain vegetables that do not pass between his lips.
Sadly I'm responsible for some of his hated vegetables even becoming his enemies in the first place...I introduced him to swiss chard (he wont even be in the same room with it) and I forced beets on him maybe to forcefully.

Asparagus is one of my all time favorites, and when I heard that it was on the list of Veggies Not To Be Named I had to change his mind. So I did what any reasonable young person would do. I made pizza...

White pizza is a weakness of mine and I had some leftover ricotta leftover from a pasta dish earlier in the week. The Portland Pie Co sells their garlic pizza dough at our local grocery store, and when I picked up a glob I knew what I could do to swing the odds in my favor.

I mixed roasted cherry tomatoes and roasted garlic with the ricotta, along with salt and pepper, as well as some crushed red pepper. I smeared this mix on the uncooked dough and topped it with a bit of crumbled bacon and then topped the whole mess with half of a bunch of asparagus, shredded thin with a veggie peeler. The heat from the oven does an amazing job of roasting the thin shreds of asparagus and the seasoned ricotta and tomato mixture make a mellow base. Salty, crunchy bacon won over the man who admitted that he would definitely try asparagus again, and ate the pizza for dinner, as well as breakfast the next day. Win.

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This Week In The Kitchen

Geez the way I write around here you'd think the new job has killed all the cookery in our kitchen (Say that five times fast)
…In reality it hasn't, just this past week I made fusilli with chicken and asparagus in a spinach cream sauce (we had some fabulous company), a bacon and asparagus risotto (topped with poached eggs!), and a quinoa pilaf with leeks and spring peas that I made too much of and ate for the next two days in my little cubicle at work, totally unwilling to share the leftovers with the man. I’ve been quite good about feeding us right lately and I have every intention to continue it. As soon as the spring vegetables started poking their way into my reading, and my line of vision at the grocery store, I felt more awake about what I’ve been eating than I have in months.
I’m working hard to keep that spirit going, even as the food prices rise and the mercury dips back down into the thirties. This week I’m going to the grocery store armed with a plan. A weekly 'menu' based loosely around what I’d like to eat this week, what looks good around the internets, and what interests me at the moment.
It’s really for my own good,, because if i don’t start writing things down I will come home with one of the 'forbidden' vegetables that I can’t eat unless the man is out of the house, (or at least out of sight) like beets, or chard...you know those colorful and delicious winter veggies that got the rest of the food blogging set through the winter? Yeah, he can’t stand them, and really I can't stand to make something we both won’t eat…and so I wait until he goes out to eat them.
On the menu this week is a dish of chicken dress in pine nuts, lemons and cracked green olives, another quinoa pilaf, (with kale I think this time...), a gingery pork and napa cabbage stir ‘fry’over brown rice, and linguine with fennel and sardines…you might notice that I’ve added meat back into the equation, but it’s a very small amount of meat for the amount of vegetables and grains we eat…I find that that balance works best for me.
As for right now, well… I have to go rescue the cat, because she’s being slow motion chased by the man and its giving her anxiety. More...

Lettuce Wraps

Do you ever have trouble finding the words to make someone understand something? I feel like my life is a series of those moments lately. I must brush up on the english language...or whatever.


I made the lettuce wraps a WEEK AGO after eating some sort of nasty ones at a bar / restaurant that will go un-named. It was in Cambridge, but that is all I will say. Also the service was terrible, its like it would have killed the waitress and the bartender to smile...but anyway, lettuce wraps! they are super easy and delicious! and they are like asian tacos...its a beautiful thing really when you can eat a lettuce taco filled with charred (from the grill pan!) chicken -or tofu, ahem- thats had a bath in spicy, chili laced peanut sauce.

there. i put some words out...thats a step in the right direction! whew!


see you soon.

xo-elle. More...